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BELGIUM 


'hd^^J^'^A.'txr, 


JrifM    of  t*ie  zG^elMU^Thd 


BELGIUM 

A    PERSONAL    NARRATIVE 


BY 

BRAND  WHITLOCK 

UNITED   STATES   MINISTER  TO    BELGIUM 

AND   AUTHOR   OF 

"forty  years  of  it," 

ETC. 


VOLUME  I 


D.  APPLETON  AND   COMPANY 
NEW   YORK  MCMXIX 


Copyright,  1919,  bt 
BRAND  WHITLOCK 


all  righta  reserved 

COPTBIGHT,   1918,   BT 
THE  RIDGWAY  COMPANY 

COFTBIOBT  IN  GREAT  BBITAIN,  CANADA,  AUSTBALIA 


all  rights  reserved  for 

France,  Belgium,  Holland,  Italy,  Spain,  Russia,  Central  and  South  America 

and  the  Scandinavian  Countries 


PRINTED   IN  THE  UNITED  STATES   OF  AMERICA 


College 
Librarj^ 


DEDICATED 

WITH   HIS  majesty's  PERMISSION 
TO 

ALBERT  I 

KING  OF  THE  BELGIANS 


Je  Tai  vu,  dis-je,  vu,  de  mes  propres  yeux  vu, 
Ce  qu'on  appelle  vu     .     ,*    .     .     . 

Molidre 


CONTENTS  OF  VOLUME  I 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    The  Silver  Bowii 1 

II.    The  Season 5 

III.  Summer 16 

IV.  BoisFleuri 21 

V.    TheTeDeum 26 

VI.    A  Tragedy 34 

VII.    Ultimata 39 

VIII.    C'EsT  LA  Guerre 47 

IX.    The  Summons 51 

X.    The  Invasion 53 

XI.    The  King  Goes  to  Parliament 56 

XII.    The  Naivetes  of  History 66 

XIII.  HoRUM  Omnium  Fortissimi  Sunt  Belgae      .     .  69 

XIV.  Rumour 79 

XV.    Repatriating  Germans 86 

XVI.    A  Bit  of  History 89 

XVII.    Les  Forts  Tiennent  Toujours 94 

XVIII.    English  and  Americans 101 

XIX.    Her  Majesty 104 

XX.    The  Government  Leaves 108 

XXI.    The  Trenches  at  the  Bois 112 

XXII.    The  Grey  Hordes 119 

XXIII.  Uno  Pauo  de  Lagrimas 138 

XXIV.  Richard  Harding  Davis 147 

XXV.    "We  Have  TO  Destroy  THE  City"     ....  151 

XXVI.    LouvAiN 153 

XXVII.     MONSEIGNEUR  AND  THE  LIBRARY 157 

IX 


X  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XXVIIL  The  Story  OF  LouvAiN 161 

XXIX.  Some  German  Testimony 179 

XXX.  DiNANT 197 

XXXI.  Namur,  Andenne,  and  Elsewhere      .     .     .  204 

XXXII.  Tamines 211 

XXXIII.  Man  Hat  Geschossen 215 

XXXIV.  The  German  State 219 

;XXXV.  Von  DER  Goltz  Pasha 235 

XXXVI.  The  Battle  of  the  Marne 247 

XXXVII.  Nach  Paris 258 

XXXVIII.  The  Siege  Guns 264 

XXXIX.  The  Adventure  of  the  Duchess   ....  270 

XL.  They  Are  Prussians 275 

XLI.  The  Plight  of  the  Baron   .......  284 

XLII.  Bricks  Without  Straw 292 

XLIII.  Ruined  Louvain  . 295 

XLIV.  Our  Daily  Bread 297 

XLV.  The  Arrest  of  the  Burgomaster       .     .     .  302 

XLVI.  Sunday ^314 

XLVII.  The  Bombardment 317 

XLVIII.  The  Summons 322 

XLIX.  The  English  Have  Arrived 325 

L.  Antwerp  Has  Fallen 328 

LI.  The  Refugees 331 

LII.  Hunger 338 

LIII.  Reflections 352 

LIV.  The  C.  N.  and  the  C.  R.  B 358 

LV.  The  Arrest  of  the  English 370 

LVI.  Hatred  of  the  English 380 

LVII.  ViveleRoi 388 

LVIII.  VonBissing 392 

LIX.  Herbert  Clark  Hoover 398 

LX.  New  Year's  Day 4-17 


CONTENTS  XI 

CHAPTEB  PAGE 

LXI.  Organization  of  the  General  Government  433 

LXII.  The  Judiciary 451 

LXIII.  The  Batonnier  Theodor 471 

LXIV.  The  Decision 484 

LXV.  The  Atmosphere  of  the  Occupation  .     .     .  495 

LXVI.  Resistance 501 

LXVII.  Art  AND  War 507 

LXVIII.  In  the  Chateaux 521 

LXIX.  Vexations 532 

LXX.  The  Ravitaillement 537 

LXXI.  Spring 553 

LXXII.  Violations  of  the  Convention      ....  563 

LXXIII.  Feeding  the  North  of  France      ....  571 

LXXIV.  Escaping  at  the  Frontier 583 

LXXV.  TheLusitania 610 

LXXVI.  Am  Raids 626 

LXXVII.  The  Strike  at  Malines 632 

LXXVIII.  La  Libre  Belgique 641 

LXXIX.  The  Belgian  Crop 646 

LXXX.  A  Crisis 657 


BELGIUM 


THE   SILVER   BOWL 

On  an  evening  late  in  the  month  of  May  1914  we 
were  dining  at  the  German  Legation.  We  had  arisen 
from  the  long  table  and  gone  up  to  the  salons„  and  as  we 
stood  about  waiting  for  the  coffee  I  found  myself  be- 
side Herr  von  Below- Saleski,  who  said  to  me  in  a  low 
voice  and  with  a  sigh: 

"Well,  thank  God,  it's  over  now." 

He  spoke,  no  doubt,  in  the  sense  of  intimacy  that  was 
somehow  ours  because  we  had  come  at  about  the  same 
time  to  Brussels,  where  we  knew  no  one,  not  even  each 
other ;  the  fact  was  somewhat  of  a  bond,  the  only  one,  be- 
tween us.  I  could  quite  understand  the  relief  he  felt, 
the  relief  of  the  host  who  has  done  his  duty;  I  had  the 
same  sensation  myself  in  my  capacity  of  guest. 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "it's  over  at  last." 

"We  can  be  tourists  now,"  he  went  on,  "go  where  we 
please,  do  what  we  please.'* 

"Where  are  you  going?"  I  asked. 

"Oh,  I  don't  know ;  anywhere,  to  be  free,  to  get  away. 
Take  a  trip  somewhere.    And  you?" 

"To  the  country." 

And  I  thought  of  Bois  Fleuri,  waiting  for  me  there 
that  night,  in  the  dismal  rain  that  made  the  Quartier 
Leopold  so  dreary  and  emphasized  that  expression  of 

1 


BELGIUM 

vague  sadness  it  always  wears,  even  when  the  sun  lights 
up  its  blocks  of  austere  houses.  My  heart  was  lighter 
for  an  instant  in  the  thought  of  the  country,  the  noble 
forest,  Ravenstein  with  its  golf  links  and  the  red  roofs 
of  little  Tervueren. 

While  my  thoughts  played  with  the  pleasant  anticipa- 
tions of  vacation  my  colleague  left  me  standing  there, 
to  greet  a  dog,  a  German  dachshund  that  just  then 
came  wriggling  into  the  salon,  as  delighted  to  be  ad- 
mitted to  the  company  as  the  company  was  to  have  it 
come ;  there  is  perhaps  nothing  as  efficient  as  a  dog,  even 
one  of  these  dachshunds,  to  entertain  the  guests  of  a 
formal  dinner.  The  dog  was  gamboling  about  and 
writhing  ecstatically  on  the  floor,  which  it  thumped  with 
its  tail,  and  the  guests  exclaimed  over  it  and  spoke  to  it 
in  French,  though  doubtless  German  was  the  only  lan- 
guage it  understood,  and  flattered  it  with  endearing 
epithets : 

"Oh,  le  gentil  petit  toutou!  .  .  .  Quel  amour  de  cTuen! 
.  ,  .  Qu'il  est  charmcmt,  n'est-ce  pas?  .  .  .  Ici,  mon 
vieux!  .  .  ." 

The  dog  accepted  all  their  compliments  with  a  dog's 
frank  love  of  flattery ;  the  salon  was  enhvened  with  talk, 
with  exclamations,  with  laughter.  The  footmen  were 
serving  the  coffee  and  the  cigarettes,  and,  leaving  his 
other  guests,  Herr  von  Below  came  back  to  me.  We 
were  standing  by  a  table  in  a  corner  of  the  room,  and 
from  among  the  oh  jets  d'art,  the  various  trinkets,  the 
signed  photographs  in  silver  frames  with  which  it  was 
loaded,  he  drew  forward  a  silver  bowl  that  he  used  as  a 
cendrier.  As  I  dropped  the  ash  of  my  cigarette  into  it, 
I  noticed  that  it  was  pierced  on  one  side  near  the  rim 
by  a  perfectly  round  hole,  the  jagged  edges  of  which 

2 


THE  SILVER  BOWL 

were  thrust  inward;  it  was  plainly  a  bullet-hole,  and 
doubtless  the  bowl  had  a  history.    I  asked  him. 

"Yes,  a  bullet  hole,"  he  said.  "In  China,  it  stood  on 
my  desk,  and  one  day  during  the  riots  a  bullet  came 
through  the  window  and  went  right  through  it." 

Several  of  the  guests  pressed  up  to  see ;  such  a  bowl, 
with  its  jagged  bullet  hole  and  a  history  was  an  excel- 
lent subject  for  conversation;  the  German  Minister  had 
to  recount  the  circumstances  several  times. 

"I  have  never  had  a  post,"  he  said,  "where  there  has 
not  been  trouble;  in  Turkey  it  was  the  Revolution,  in 
China  it  was  the  Boxers.  I  am  a  bird  of  ill  omen."  ("Je 
suis  un  oiseau  de  mauvais  augur e") 

He  laughed,  standing  there  very  erect  and  tall  and 
distinguished,  with  his  pointed  black  moustaches,  raising 
his  cigarette  delicately  to  his  lips  with  a  wide  and  elegant 
gesture,  while  the  guests  purred  about,  examined  the 
silver  bowl,  thrust  their  fingers  into  the  bullet  hole. 

"But  now,"  he  went  on,  "I  have  the  most  tranquil 
post  in  Europe ;  nothing  can  happen  in  Brussels." 

And  we  all  fell  to  celebrating  the  peace,  the  calm,  the 
repose  of  the  loveliest,  the  most  charming  city  in  Eu- 
rope. .  .  . 

I  think  we  all  felt  the  relief  that  the  end  of  the  sea- 
son brought  us,  for  Herr  von  Below's  was  the  last  of  the 
long  series  of  dinners  and  formal  functions  of  the  win- 
ter. There  were  only  a  few  more  moments  to  be  got 
over;  then  the  footmen  would  wheel  in  the  service  of 
the  tea  and  announce  the  carriages,  and  we  could 
go.  .  .  .  And  then,  Bois  Fleuri,  and  the  links  at  Raven- 
stein,  and  the  manuscript  of  the  novel  I  had  so  long 
wished  to  write  I 

I  went  over  to  where  Prince  KoudachefF,  our  Rus- 

3 


BELGIUM 

sian  colleague,  was  standing  by  a  great  red  curtain  at 
the  entrance  to  the  adjoining  salon,  peering  with  that 
sharp,  cynical  glance  out  at  a  world  that  had  stripped 
him  of  his  last  illusion.  It  was  always  a  pleasure  to  chat 
with  Prince  Koudacheff ;  he  was  so  good  at  heart  in  his 
Russian  way,  and  his  incorrigible  pessimism  was  so  de- 
lightful. But  nearby,  in  the  great  hall,  one  of  the  Ger- 
man secretaries  of  legation  was  recounting  the  history 
of  an  enormous  oil-painting  of  the  Kaiser  that  hung 
over  the  staircase ;  the  history  was  neither  important  nor 
interesting,  but  since  the  portrait  was  of  the  Kaiser,  the 
secretary  adopted  the  courtier's  tone  in  speaking  of  it, 
and  I  could  like  the  young  Belgian  who,  squinting  up 
at  the  theatrical  figure  in  its  bald  and  too  vivid  colours, 
said: 

"II  sercdt  permis  de  dire,  n'est-ce  pas,  que  comme  art, 
la  peinture  nest  pas  fameuse?" 

But  then  Herr  von  Below  was  said  to  be  a  man  of 
superb  taste,  he  played  the  piano  well,  and  had  a  knowl- 
edge of  all  the  arts.  Under  him  the  German  Legation 
would  be  immensely  improved.  He  had  set  out  a  new 
formal  garden;  he  would  enhance  the  already  widen- 
ing German  influence  in  Belgium.  His  dinners  that 
spring  had  been  excellent;  the  J^ourgogne  we  had  just 
had  for  dinner,  for  instance,  was  the  famous  Chateau- 
Chose— 1S7S. 


II 


THE   SEASON 


It  had  been  a  brilliant  and  a  crowded  season,  even  if 
its  beginnings  had  been  touched  by  the  shadow  of 
mourning  for  the  Countess  of  Flanders,  the  mother  of 
the  King,  from  which  the  Court  was  just  emerging. 
The  two  salons  hleus  with  which  the  season  at  Brussels 
begins  had  been  given  at  the  Palace  and  the  Queen's 
garden  party,  with  which  it  ends,  in  the  Summer  Palace 
at  Laeken.  But  that  year,  destined  to  be  so  tragic  in 
Belgian  history  and  in  the  history  of  mankind,  had  been 
distinguished  by  events  of  unusual  social  interest.  There 
had  been  the  special  mission  from  the  new  Chinese  Re- 
public; the  visit  of  the  King  and  Queen  of  Denmark; 
and  later  in  the  fatal  summer,  the  visit  of  the  Lord 
Mayor  of  London,  who  in  robes  and  golden  chains 
came  riding — at  least  from  the  Gare  du  Nord  to  the 
Palace — in  his  ancient,  coach  with  his  beef -eaters  and 
all  the  civic  pomp  of  old  London  town.  And  these 
events  had  laughing  echoes  and  brilliant  reflections  in 
the  Quartier  Leopold,  which  never  perhaps  had  been 
so  gay.  It  is  the  quarter  sacred,  from  time  if  not  im- 
memorial, at  least  what  would  be  immemorial  in  most 
of  our  cities,  to  the  aristocracy,  and  lies  west  of  the 
boulevards  of  the  "upper  town,"  as  that  part  of  the  city 
was  called  when  Leopold  I  came  to  the  throne,  and  with 
its  solid  blocks  of  stately  houses,  it  extends  now  east- 
ward almost  to  the  Cinquantenaire ;  so  has  aristocracy 

5 


BELGIUM 

flourished.  Joseph  Conrad  in  one  of  his  stories  refers 
to  those  houses  as  having  given  him  the  impression  of 
"whitened  sepulchres,"  and  the  quartier  does  wear,  in- 
deed, an  aspect  of  vague  melancholy,  un  peu  triste,  with 
its  monotonous  fa9ades  of  grey  or  white,  or  cafe  au  lait, 
that  have  a  way  of  scowling  gloomily  in  the  rain  that 
drops  down  so  easily  from  the  low  grey  northern  skies. 
The  houses  seem  always  to  be  closed,  and  the  persiennes 
drawn,  as  though  their  owners  were  not  at  home;  per- 
haps it  is  because  they  are  not  at  home  to  everybody, 
though  when  one  of  the  great  doors  is  opened  with  a 
great  clatter  of  chains  by  an  impassive  footman,  and 
one  has  been  admitted,  one  attributes  the  external  as- 
pect to  the  reserve  that  one  finds  characterizing  every- 
thing within,  surcharging  even  the  calm  atmosphere. 
Through  these  great  doors  in  other  days  carriages 
rolled  as  motor-cars  roll  in  ours,  or  as  they  did  roll  until 
the  Germans  came,  and  at  the  other  end  of  the  porte- 
cochere,  which  pierces  the  house  like  a  tunnel,  one  has  a 
bright  glimpse  of  those  lovely  gardens  where  so  much 
of  the  intimate  life  of  Brussels  is  passed.  For  the 
Briuvellois  knows  the  charm  of  formal  gardens,  the 
mystery  of  high  walls  with  the  lavender  blossoms  of 
wistaria  or  the  bloom  of  a  peach  bough  falling  over  them 
in  spring,  just  as,  from  long  intercourse  with  France, 
he  knows  the  beauty  of  subdued  colours  and  the  exquisite 
lines  of  the  furniture  that  was  made  in  the  time  of  the 
Louis. 

The  inner  doors  of  these  old  mansions  have  a  sense 
of  exclusion  and  intimacy  that  enhances  their  hospitality 
once  one  is  admitted  to  it;  they  give  into  stately  halls, 
with  a  wide  staircase  leading  up  to  the  great  salons  with 
their  lofty  ceilings  and  their  heavily  curtained  windows 

6 


THE  SEASON 

overlooking  the  street,  and  the  espion  to  tell  who  stands 
at  the  door  without — a  device  that  might  have  relieved 
Horace  of  the  bore  Crispinus,  and  delivered  Emerson 
out  of  the  dangers  of  those  awful  Devastators  of  the 
Day  who  dwell  in  every  land.  The  old  house,  there  on 
the  corner  of  the  Rue  Belliard  and  the  Rue  de  Treves, 
that  is  the  American  Legation,  did  very  well  for  the 
ordinary  times  of  peace,  though  it  was  hardly  prepared 
for  those  extraordinary  times  then  lurking  in  the  dark 
future,  when  it  was  to  be  daily  crowded  with  the  victims 
of  tragedies  that  even  Joseph  Conrad  could  not  have 
imagined,  and  to  become  the  strange  stage  of  events  that 
are  now  part  of  the  history  of  the  dear,  the  charming,  the 
tragic  land.  There  was  little  hint  of  those  tragedies  in 
the  bright  spring  that  came  so  early  in  that  fateful  year. 
It  all  seems  like  a  dream  now  from  some  dim  land  of 
youth,  and  of  another  day  when  we  were  all  young  and 
the  world  was  otherwise.  How  long  ago  those  dinners 
at  the  various  Ministries — at  M.  Davignon's,  first  of  all, 
where  an  American  lady,  whose  husband  had  just  been 
ordered  home,  glancing  down  the  long  table  brilliant 
with  its  napery,  its  flowers,  its  plate,  the  uniforms  of 
the  men  and  the  toilettes  of  the  women  about  it,  and 
the  flashing  jewels,  sighed  and  whispered  to  me: 

"I  hate  to  leave  it  all!" 

We  were  all  soon  to  leave  it  and  we  did  not  know, 
and  the  master  of  the  house  was  to  be  among  the  first 
to  go  not  only  into  exile,  while  Germans  came  to  pil- 
lage his  wine-cellars  and  carouse  in  that  very  dining 
hall,  but  to  hasten  on  into  that  longer,  darker  exile 
where  myriads  have  since  been  hurried.  .  .  . 

It  all  seems  like  a  dream,  we  say,  in  our  despair  of 

7 


BELGIUM 

giving  a  real  sense  of  the  unreality  of  some  very  real 
event,  and  I  suppose  that  what  leads  one  to  say  that, 
aside  from  one's  inability  to  give  clearness  to  a  rather 
vague  thought,  is  the  fact  that  such  light,  gay,  inconse- 
quential, natural  and  human  things  are  impossible  in 
our  world  any  more  since  it  entered  upon  this  long  and 
endless  night  and  the  terrible  reality  of  its  nightmare; 
they  are  events  that  belong  to  a  world  in  which  we  used 
to  live — a  world  so  changed  now  that  it  can  never  be 
the  same  again.  And  yet  there  is  a  succession  of  scenes 
that  live  vivid  in  the  memory;  I  can  even  recall  with 
perfect  distinctness  phrases  that  were  uttered,  phrases 
of  not  the  least  importance,  apropos  of  nothing  at  all — 
the  old  habit  of  a  memory  in  which  arrangements  of 
words  have  a  way  of  embedding  themselves.  For  in- 
stance, that  night  at  the  Lamberts',  when  the  Baroness 
in  a  kind  of  haughty  beauty  was  moving  among  her 
guests,  with  emeralds  flashing  in  her  hair;  Madame 
Guinotte  entered  the  salon  with  her  two  pretty  daugh- 
ters; they  were  all  in  white  and  might  have  been  taken 
for  sisters — a  charming  sight — and  Count  John  d'Oul- 
tremont,  stopping  before  them  saying,  in  his  deliberate 
way:  "Bonsoir,  Madame.  Comment  se  porte  voire 
nombreuse  famille?" 

I  can  see  the  fashionable  cohue  that  thronged  the 
salons  of  the  Prince  Charles  de  Ligne's  house  there  on 
the  Avenue  des  Arts,  in  those  famous  soirees  that  began 
at  eleven  o'clock;  the  old  Prince  is  leading  my  wife  out 
to  the  dining-room  and  the  handsome  young  Prince 
Georges  de  Ligne  is  talking  to  the  pretty  Countess 
.  And  the  old  Prince  Charles  is  dead,  and 
the  Baroness  Lambert  is  dead,  and  the  Count  John 

8 


THE  SEASON 

d'Oultremont  is  a  prisoner  in  Germany  * — they  used  to 
call  him  le  beau  d'Oultremont  in  his  youth  when  he 
was  an  officer  in  the  Guides — and  young  Prince  Georges 
de  Ligne  is  dead,  killed  at  Winghe-St.  Georges,  and 
the  great  salons,  hung  in  red  in  the  old  house  in  the 
Avenue  des  Arts,  are  closed  and  dark.  .   .  . 

And  again  that  afternoon  at  the  Wittoucks' ;  Debussy 
is  playing;  his  finger-nails  had  an  odd  way  of  striking 
the  counter  of  the  piano  as  he  played ;  and  there  was  an 
actress  from  la  Comedie  Fran9aise,  une  diseuse,  down 
from  Paris  for  the  day,  who  stood  and  recited  while 
Debussy  played;  she  had  a  voice  as  sweet  as  falling 
rain.  .  .  . 

I  have  a  vision  of  the  Marquis  of  Villalobar  standing 
beside  the  Prince  Napoleon,  near  the  great  palms  of  a 
fountain  in  the  conservatory  of  Prince  Ernest  de 
Ligne's  house  in  the  rue  Montoyer,  looking  on  the  world 
he  estimated  to  a  nicety  by  every  one  of  its  various 
standards.  The  Princess  Clementine  is  there — ladies  are 
making  sweeping  courtesies  before  her,  and  gentlemen 
with  orders  on  their  hearts  are  kissing  her  hand. 

And  then  the  ball  at  the  Palace  and  the  dancers  un- 
der the  brilliant  chandeliers,  the  jewels  and  the  gleam 
of  white  shoulders,  and  the  gold  lace  of  the  officers  of 
the  Guides — their  trousers  of  cherry  red — and  old  gen- 
erals whose  breasts  were  heavy  with  orders,  and  sud- 
denly the  King,  in  black  evening  dress,  his  arm  in  a 
black  silk  sling,  the  result  of  a  fall  from  a  vicious  horse 
in  the  Foret  de  Soignes  the  other  day. 

And  then  there  was  the  Opera,  every  night  if  one 
cared  to  go,  at  the  Theatre  Royal  de  la  Monnaie;  all 

^  Count  John  d'Oultremont,  from  the  effects  of  his  confinement, 
has  died  since  this  line  was  written, 

9 


BELGIUM 

the  old  operas,  and  the  Iting  of  the  Niehelungen,  sung 
by  a  German  company  from  the  Opera  at  Dresden, 
with  German  thoroughness,  not  a  line  cut — and  Wag- 
ner needs  a  blue  pencil.  Every  one  dined  during  the 
long  entr'acte  in  the  Restaurant  de  la  Monnaie,  and  a 
bugler  would  blow  the  Siegfried  motif  to  announce  the 
curtain.  Then  Parsifal,  a  score  of  times,  in  French, 
and  Electra  and  Salome^  with  Richard  Strauss  himself 
conducting  and  the  audience  gone  wild,  standing  up  and 
shouting  its  enthusiastic  bravos.  La  Monnaie  is  the 
soul  of  the  city;  it  was  in  this  very  theatre,  at  a  per- 
formance of  Auber's  La  Muette  de  Portici,  that  the 
Revolution  of  1830  burst  forth.  Every  one  goes — the 
men  keeping  on  their  opera-hats  until  the  curtain  rises, 
standing  and  sweeping  the  loges  with  their  glasses,  and 
the  royal  box  to  see  if  the  little  Queen,  who  is  very  fond 
of  music,  is  there,  or  across  at  the  Burgomaster's  box 
to  see  if  M.  Max  has  come,  and  this  until  the  conductor 
appears,  bows,  taps  with  his  baton,  and  the  lights  slowly 
die  away  into  darkness  and  stillness  falls,  and  one  enters 
into  that  other  world  whose  harmonies  are  so  impossible 
to  this  that  man  has  so  stupidly  arranged  for  himself. 

There  was,  of  course,  the  theatre ;  every  week  the  com- 
pany from  the  Comedie  Fran^aise  came  to  "Le  Pare"; 
Kraus  that  spring  was  playing  Servir,  the  play  whose 
terrible  climax  was  so  soon  to  be  reproduced  on  a  titanic 
scale  with  the  whole  vast  theatre  of  Europe  as  its  stage ; 
while  at  Les  Galeries  Max  Dearly  was  playing  Mon 
Behe,  the  French  adaptation  of  Margaret  Mayo's  com- 
edy, Baby  Mine,  in  which  for  us  there  was  a  double 
amusement  in  the  inaccurate  adaptation  of  a  Chicago 
scene  to  the  French  stage. 

Indeed  there  was  the  suggestion  of  the  theatre  in  the 

10 


THE  SEASON 

whole  series  of  events  that  made  that  season  memorable. 
Not  that  it  was  theatrical  in  its  effect,  much  less  in  its 
intention,  but  it  provided  a  succession  of  tableaux 
known  to  our  Western  world  only  through  the  theatre,  as 
when  the  special  Chinese  Mission  was  received  at  the 
Hotel  de  Ville,  or  at  the  dinner  given  at  the  Chinese 
Legation,  the  gardens  outlined  in  coloured  Oriental 
lights,  and  the  Belgian  Ministers  all  wearing  the  new 
Celestial  decorations  which  the  special  Ambassador  of 
the  latest  republic  had  so  generously  distributed. 

Or  in  the  first  moments  of  the  diner  de  gala  given 
by  the  King  to  the  new  Brazilian  Minister  and  the  new 
American  Minister^the  vast  hall  and  the  waiting 
guests,  and  the  brilliant  group  of  officers  at  the  great 
double  doors,  the  sudden  cry  "Le  Roi!"  and  the  doors 
swinging  open  and  the  King  standing  there. 

And  then  there  was  the  Queen's  Garden  Party  at  the 
summer  Palace  at  Laeken,  in  the  vast  conservatories, 
with  their  masses  of  soaring  green  and  towering  palms 
and  the  heavy  odour  of  strange  flowers.  The  Garden- 
Party  usually  marks  the  close  of  the  official  season.  It 
is  given  in  May,  when  the  flowers  without  as  well  as 
the  flowers  within  the  royal  gardens  are  all  in  bloom ;  but 
since  it  is  apt  to  rain  on  any  day  in  Belgium,  the  party, 
with  its  reception  to  the  diplomatic  corps,  is  always  given 
in  the  royal  conservatories. 

But  there  was  another  event  in  that  year  which  suc- 
ceeded the  Garden-Party — the  visit  of  the  King  and 
Queen  of  Denmark.  There  had  been  no  such  festivities 
in  Brussels  since  the  visit  of  the  German  Emperor  and 
Empress.  They  began  with  the  reception  King  Chris- 
tian held  for  the  diplomatic  corps  at  the  Palace,  his  tall 
form  in  the  scarlet  coat,  giving  him  the  air  of  an  officer 

11 


BELGIUM 

of  the  Life  Guards.  There  was  the  concours  hipique, 
and  review  of  the  Belgian  army,  with  a  pavihon  for  the 
two  Queens,  and  a  tribune  for  the  diplomatic  corps  at 
the  Rond  Point  of  the  Avenue  de  Tervueren;  a  day 
of  heat  and  clouds  of  dust  raised  by  the  marching  in- 
fantry, the  lovable  Belgian  dogs  dutifully  trundling 
their  mitrailleuses  behind  them,  the  rumbling  guns  of 
the  artillery,  and  the  Guides  and  the  Lancers  galloping 
in  review  before  the  two  Kings,  side  by  side  on  their 
chargers  with  their  staffs  behind  them;  while  military 
bands  played  and  trumpets  blared  and  drums  rolled, 
and  all  Brussels  turned  out  to  see  and  to  cheer. 

There  was,  too,  the  reception  given  by  the  munici- 
pality at  the  Hotel  de  Ville.  We  were  all  assembled  in 
the  ancient  Salle  Gothique,  hung  about  with  the  old 
tapestries,  under  the  Spanish  flags  that  have  depended 
from  that  oaken  ceiling  since  the  time  of  the  Spanish 
domination.  The  Burgomaster  Max,  svelte,  pale,  with 
his  prominent  eyes,  his  pointed  blonde  beard,  his  curling 
moustaches,  wearing  the  uniform  and  the  scarlet  sash 
of  the  Burgomaster,  delivers  in  his  exquisite  French  an 
address  of  welcome,  to  which  the  King  of  Denmark 
responds.  There  is  a  quartette  to  play  and  Croiza  is 
there  to  sing,  and  there  are  two  premieres  danseuses 
from  the  Monnaie.  The  divertissement  over,  the  throng 
drifted  along  the  corridors  to  the  splendid  chambers 
of  the  Burgomaster,  the  King  and  Queen  signed  in  the 
Liivre  d'Or,  and  then  we  went  out  onto  the  balcony  to 
see  the  royal  party  drive  away. 

Down  there  below  us  the  Grand'  Place,  the  most 
beautiful  square  in  the  world,  lies  under  our  eyes;  di- 
rectly across  from  us  the  Maison  du  Roi,  with  its  gilded 

12 


THE  SEASON 

facade;  all  about  the  houses  of  the  ancient  guilds;  and 
overhead  that  lovely  spire  whereon  a  golden  St.  Michael 
stands  triumphant  over  the  dragon  he  has  slain.  Close 
to  the  walls  on  all  the  four  sides  of  the  square  are 
massed  the  delegates  from  all  the  old  corporations,  all 
the  syndicates,  all  the  societies  of  Brussels,  their  silken 
banners  mingled  in  a  mass  of  red  and  green  and  blue 
and  gold.  Their  bearers  stand  silent,  motionless,  wait- 
ing for  royalty  to  appear;  the  empty  Square  is  spread 
before  them.  We  stand  on  the  narrow  stone  balcony 
and  gaze  down.  The  historical  associations  of  the  place 
impose  on  one  the  respect  of  silence.  There  in  that 
square  there  had  been  the  jousts  of  the  Knights  of  the 
cloth  of  gold;  there  had  been  held  the  old  fetes  of  the 
communes;  there  the  old  trade  guilds  had  fought  out 
their  fierce  quarrels ;  the  gueuoo  had  assembled  there,  and 
there  Egmont  and  Home  were  beheaded.  Charles  V 
had  ridden  there  in  pomp  and  the  Duke  of  Alva  had 
stalked  across  those  very  stones;  there  the  cannon-balls 
of  Villefroi  had  wrought  their  havoc.  And  it  was  all  as 
it  is  to-day,  those  four  gilded  fa9ades,  that  beautiful 
spire  soaring  aloft — on  that  morning  when  some  man 
coming  into  the  square  from  the  Rue  du  Marche-aux- 
Herbes,  related  the  news  of  the  discovery  of  America — 
to  be  told  no  doubt,  that  such  a  thing  could  not  be.  The 
centuries  had  rolled  over  it,  and  left  it  unchanged  in  its 
beauty,  and  as  we  stood  there  looking  down  the  modern 
world  faded  away.  .  .  .  Out  from  the  portiere  below  us 
rode  four  heralds,  slowly,  with  stately  tread  of  their  ca- 
parisoned horses ;  they  rode  into  the  centre  of  the  square, 
lifted  their  long  trumpets  to  their  lips,  held  them  point- 
ing upward  at  a  graceful  angle  and  blew  a  long  fanfare, 
and  turning  slowly  around,  blew  to  the  four  quarters 

13 


BELGIUM 

of  the  square.  And  then  out  from  the  portiere  there 
rolled  a  coach  of  state,  of  red  and  gold,  with  coachmen 
and  footmen  in  scarlet  liveries  and  powdered  wigs,  and 
then  another  coach  of  state  and  another — six  in  all — with 
the  Kings  and  the  Queens  and  the  princes  and  the  lords 
and  ladies-in-waiting,  and  while  the  trumpets  of  the 
heralds  blew  they  rolled  slowly  around  the  Grand'  Place 
in  the  light  that  fell  from  a  sky  of  mother-of-pearl  in 
the  mild  spring  evening.  The  delegates  of  the  corpora- 
tions, the  dark  mass  all  around  the  square  lifted  the 
silken  banners  of  crimson  and  gold  and  cried:  ''Vivent 
les  Moisr 

Slowly  around  the  square  they  drove,  and  drove 
around  again,  and  then,  turning  into  the  narrow  Rue  au 
Beurre,  they  rolled  away  as  though  it  had  been  Cin- 
derella and  her  suite.  .  .  .  The  light  touched  the  gilt 
on  the  fa9ades  once  more,  then  slowly  faded  from  a  sky 
that  glowed  above  the  house  of  the  corporation  of  the 
Brewers.  ... 

Down  in  the  Court  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville  there  was  a 
startling  sound;  the  chauffeurs  were  tuning  up  their 
motors.  And  we  drove  back  into  modern  times,  back 
into  the  twentieth  century — and  home  to  dinner. 

One  more  scene  remains  to  be  sketched — that  summer 
evening  in  the  little  royal  theatre  in  the  Palace  at 
Laeken.  It  is  a  tiny  theatre,  where  perhaps  two  hun- 
dred might  find  seats.  Talma  once  acted  there,  and  one 
evening,  resting  from  his  imperial  labours,  Napoleon 
commanded  a  performance  in  honour  of  Marie  Louise. 
It  had  been  seldom  opened  since ;  and  had  not  been  used 
for  years;  the  Queen  had  had  it  restored  for  this  event 
and  with  her  own  exquisite  taste  had  herself  arranged 
the   entertainment  that  was   given.     The   King  and 

14) 


THE  SEASON 

Queen  of  Denmark  and  the  King  and  Queen  of  the 
Belgians  and  the  three  royal  children,  wriggling  uncom- 
fortably and  leaning  against  their  mother,  occupied  the 
royal  box.  An  English  duke  and  duchess  were  present 
and  the  Ministers  and  the  ladies  of  the  diplomatic  corps 
were  in  the  little  circle  of  loges;  in  the  stalls  were  the 
members  of  the  King's  and  Queen's  households.  Heldy 
sang  and  Ysaye  played.  And  then  the  second  act  of 
Orpheus  was  presented,  Ysaye  conducting.  The  stage 
opened  out  into  the  conservatories,  whose  thick  purple 
shadows  in  the  warm  summer  night  afforded  such  an 
Elysian  scene  as  no  stage  director  could  have  contrived ; 
and  with  such  a  setting,  to  such  an  audience,  in  that  min- 
iature theatre  the  company  from  La  Monnaie  rendered 
Gliick's  romantic  music.  The  ballet  from  La  Monnaie 
was  present  and  there  is  one  strain  from  the  sweetly  sad 
and  stately  music  of  the  classic  dance  that  must  always 
recall  that  warm  and  pregnant  night,  the  shadowy 
dancers  in  their  gauze,  the  shades  whence  Eurydice  was 
not  to  be  wooed  back  to  a  world  like  this.  Whenever 
that  strain  comes  suddenly  to  memory,  as  strains  of 
music  will,  it  comes  as  a  synthesis  of  all  that  is  beautiful 
and  sweet  and  evanescent,  the  motif  that  expresses  the 
personality  of  the  lovely  and  gracious  woman  who  chose 
it  as  an  oiFering  to  her  guests : 


cut-off 
15 


Ill 


SUMMER 


And  so  the  season  ends  and  it  is  June.  The  captains 
and  the  kings  depart;  the  princes  and  the  dukes,  the 
counts  and  the  barons  follow  to  their  chateaux  in 
the  country,  if  they  had  chateaux,  or  to  their  vari- 
ous cures,  or  if  they  remained  at  home  they  closed 
their  houses.  And  if  through  those  charming  nar- 
row old  streets  that  wind  and  twist  and  turn  in  the 
lower  town  the  people  swarmed  and  life  went  on  in  all 
its  essentials  as  it  had  done  for  eleven  centuries,  the 
Quartier  Leopold  was  silent  and  deserted,  the  heavy 
shutters  were  up  at  all  its  windows,  the  white  facades 
stared  purblindly  in  the  summer  sun,  now  and  then  an 
old  fiacre  with  a  prodigious  clatter  rattled  over  its  cob- 
ble-stones, and  only  servants  went  in  and  out  of  the 
great  doors. 

And  Brussels  settled  down  to  its  long  summer  somno- 
lence. The  Ministries  over  in  the  Rue  de  la  Loi  were 
dim  and  cool  and  half  deserted,  and  the  relations  be- 
tween Belgium  and  America  so  cordial  that  there  was 
not  often  much  to  be  discussed.  Promptly  at  noon  the 
rumble  of  the  city  ceased  and  every  one  in  town  went 
home  to  luncheon,  and  for  two  hours  the  town  was  as 
still  as  though  it  had  been  deserted.  Late  in  the  after- 
noon every  one  went  for  a  stroll  along  the  boulevards 
and  out  the  Avenue  Louise  or  drove  through  the  Bois 

16 


SUMMER 

de  la  Cambre,  the  loveliest  of  woods.  Or  one  could 
go  to  the  Park  and  hear  the  music  of  the  military  bands 
that  played  every  afternoon. 

I  am  conscious  that  I  write  with  an  enthusiasm  that  is 
not  a  la  mode  in  a  too  sophisticated  world,  but  I  own 
without  shame  that  long  before  I  went  there  to  live  I 
fell  captive  to  the  strange  charm  of  Brussels.  Nothing, 
for  instance,  irritated  me  more  than  to  hear  that  old 
and  oft-repeated  cliche  of  incorrigible  banality  to  the 
eifect  that  "Brussels  is  a  little  Paris."  To  the  tourist 
gaping  at  Ste.-Gudule  or  in  the  Grand'  Place,  Baedeker 
in  hand,  perhaps  yes;  but  one  does  not  know  a  city 
merely  because  one  has  visited  it  and  seen  its  principal 
sightly.  I  recall  often  and  I  recall  now  with  the  pang 
that  there  is  in  the  thought  that  he  is  of  this  world  no 
more,  with  his  gaiety  and  his  Irish  wit — he  fell  in  Flan- 
ders— a  remark  made  to  me  once  by  Tom  Kettle,  one 
of  the  brilliant  young  Irish  members  of  the  House  of 
Parliament.  It  was  years  ago  at  Dublin.  We  were 
speaking  of  the  old  town's  peculiar  charm,  and  Kettle, 
with  his  amused,  tolerant  and  somewhat  proprietary 
love  of  it,  said : 

"Stop  in  Dublin  three  days  and  you  think  you  know 
it ;  stop  three  weeks  and  you  begin  to  doubt ;  stop  three 
years  and  you  realize  that  you  will  never  penetrate  her 
mystery." 

Now  that  I  have  written  the  words  down  I  have  a 
consciousness  of  having  repeated  them  somewhere  be- 
fore— perhaps  in  another  book  wherein  I  said  something 
about  the  personality  of  cities.  For  cities  are  like 
women  in  respect  of  the  evanescent  and  impressionistic 
quality  that  is  suggested  by  the  word  charm ;  they  have 
it  or  they  have  it  not:  one  does  not  know  why  if  one 

17 


BELGIUM 

seeks  to  define  or  to  analyse  it,  it  is  quite  apt  to  vanish 
away. 

My  own  enthusiasm  for  Brussels  was  of  long  stand- 
ing. I  too  in  years  gone  by,  at  a  time  when  nothing 
would  have  seemed  more  improbable  than  the  thought 
that  I  should  ever  live  there — I  too,  in  my  quality  of 
gaping  tourist,  had  gazed  at  the  Grand'  Place  and  at 
Ste.-Gudule  and  at  the  Manneken,  had  seen  all  the 
sights  recommended  in  the  guide  books.  And  I  had 
caught  some  sense,  however  inadequate,  of  the  peculiar 
intimate  charm  of  that  highly  original  personality  which 
makes  Brussels  unique  among  the  cities  of  the  world.  It 
is  the  airiest  of  memories — an  evening  when  I  looked 
from  the  window  of  my  hotel  and  saw  a  crowd  of  youths 
and  maidens  in  a  mist  of  gentle  rain,  drifting  gaily  in  a 
dance  down  the  street,  where  the  long  reflection  of  the 
lamp-lights  wavered  in  the  shining  wet  surface  of  the 
asphalt.  I  have  spoken  of  that  scene  somewhere  else, 
and  if  it  seems  too  trivial  to  repeat,  it  is  yet  important  as 
an  implication  of  that  gaiety,  of  that  insouciance,  that 
love  of  pleasure  which  has  characterized  the  Belgian  peo- 
ple all  the  way  along  the  sad  calvary  of  its  history.  It  is 
as  characteristic  of  the  Walloons  as  it  is  of  the  Flemish, 
and  it  persists  to-day  as  strong,  as  ineradicable,  as  it  was 
in  those  long  days  that  are  kept  so  vividly  ahve  in  the 
painting  of  Jordaens  and  of  Teniers.  There  one  be- 
holds in  bright,  immortal  colours  the  love  of  the  feasting 
and  the  frolic  and  the  fun,  the  dancing,  the  eating  and 
the  drinking,  the  coarse  pleasure  in  which  Verhaeren  has 
found  the  poetical  material  for  some  of  the  most  charm- 
ing of  his  vignettes. 

The  Walloons  and  the  Flemish  meet  in  Brussels,  and 
it  is  there  that  is  accomplished  that  amalgame  which 

18 


SUMMER 

makes  the  Belgian  nation,  and  it  is  from  the  contribu- 
tions of  both  that  is  formed  that  character  which  makes 
Brussels  as  unlike  Paris  as  New  York  is  unlike  San 
Francisco.  To  the  superficial  and  half -blind  eye  there 
are,  of  course,  many  resemblances,  as  in  the  architecture, 
which  is  generally  of  the  French  tradition  and  influence, 
save  where  the  Spanish  touch  is  shown  in  the  old  gables 
of  the  lower  town,  or  the  German  heaviness  in  certain 
buildings  that  marked  the  German  invasion  of  the  ante- 
bellum days.  Perhaps  one  of  the  things  that  makes  the 
two  cities  seem  alike  to  the  traveller  who  is  always  re- 
peating the  tiresome  banality,  is  the  fact  that  in  both 
cities  the  people  sit  at  tables  on  the  sidewalks  before  the 
cafes  in  the  afternoons  and  sip  their  drinks.  But  if  he 
were  to  sit  at  one  of  those  tables  in  Brussels  awhile  he 
would  begin  to  note,  not  merely  superficial,  but  inplicit 
differences;  in  the  language  first  of  all — that  is,  if  he 
happened  to  know  French.  They  speak  French  at 
Brussels,  of  course,  but  they  speak  Flemish  too,  and 
when,  outside  of  the  Quartier  Leopold,  they  speak 
French,  it  is  apt  to  be  a  French  that  is  a  translation  of 
Flemish  modes  of  thought,  so  that  another  dialect  is 
formed,  which  degenerates  into  a  savoury  patois  spoken 
by  the  Marolliens,  the  inhabitants  of  that  swarming 
quarter  which  lies  along  the  Rue  Haute  and  the  Rue 
Blaes,  below  the  hill  on  which  the  Palais  de  Justice  lifts 
its  heavy  and  imposing  mass.  The  patois  is  a  mixture 
of  Flemish  and  Walloon  French,  and  nobody  outside  the 
Quartier  des  MaroUes  understands  it,  except  the  police- 
men and  detectives  of  the  city.  In  the  petite  bourgeoisie 
it  becomes  intelligible,  and  its  fine  distinctions  are  shown 
in  that  charming  play  whose  fancy  and  humour  are  to  be 
attributed  to  Mr.  Fernand  Wicheler,  as  its  stage  craft 

19 


BELGIUM 

is  to  be  accredited  to  Mr.  Frans  Fonson,  he  Manage 
de  Mademoiselle  Beulemans.  The  play  depends  for 
its  appeal  on  the  distinction  there  is  between  the  French 
and  the  Belgian,  between  Paris  and  Brussels,  and  shows 
accurately  what  each  thinks  of  the  other. 

The  French  have  always  made  fun  of  the  Belgians, 
as  they  have  made  fun  of  Englishmen  and  of  Ameri- 
cans, as  they  have  made  fun  of  everybody  and  every- 
thing, including  themselves.  Their  wit  is  apt  at  times 
to  be  rather  sharp  with  the  cutting  quality  of  finely  tem- 
pered steel.  They  have  more  wit  than  humour ;  the  word 
does  not  exist  in  their  language,  and  where  they  adopt 
our  own  word  they  sometimes  seem  to  lose  themselves 
in  their  use  of  it.  The  Belgians,  however,  have  humour 
— in  the  Flemish  blood  whose  strain  is  somewhere  in  the 
veins  of  all  of  them,  and  they  have  all  those  lovable 
qualities  that  go  with  humour.  This  it  is  that  makes 
Vesprit  hruocellois  quite  another  thing  from  that  of 
Paris  and  endows  it  with  a  personality  and  a  quality  all 
its  own,  so  that  Brussels  has  a  word  of  its  own  to  ex- 
press it — la  zwanze. 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  define  it  or  to  make  any  one 
appreciate  it.  To  do  that  one  must  live  in  Brussels  and 
loiter  during  long  afternoons  in  the  crowded,  narrow, 
sloping  streets  of  the  lower  town,  lunch  in  the  little 
restaurants  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  Grand'  Place  or 
along  the  Quai  au  Bois-a-Bruler,  and  somehow  learn  to 
know  and  appreciate  the  tang  and  flavour  of  the  local 
accent,  and,  by  slow  degrees,  find  one's  way  into  and  be 
accepted  by  the  great  heart  of  the  city  that  is  not  like 
any  other  in  the  world. 


IV 

BOIS   FLEUEI 

Early  in  June  we  went  to  the  country,  to  the  villa 
we  had  taken  for  the  summer.  It  was — the  mind  thinks 
persistently  in  the  past  tense,  of  that  lost  time  before 
the  world  was  for  ever  changed  for  us  and  we,  alas !  for 
it — it  was  not  far  from  town;  not  twenty  minutes  in  a 
motor,  indeed,  from  the  Quartier  Leopold  and  the  Le- 
gation, so  that  we  could  be  out  and  in.  And  yet  it  was 
in  such  a  retired  spot,  hidden  away  in  its  little  grove 
of  fir-trees,  that  one  could  imagine  one's  self  leagues 
away  from  all  that  suggests  the  town,  all  that  is  inim- 
ical to  seclusion  and  repose.  To  reach  it  we  drove  out 
the  Avenue  de  Tervueren,  the  new  street  that  Leopold 
II,  the  great  builder,  had  laid  out  on  the  uplands  east 
of  town;  and  at  Wolu we- Saint-Pierre  we  were  already 
in  the  country  on  a  pleasant  road  that  soon  was  winding 
through  the  Foret  de  Soignes,  where  in  the  solemn  shad- 
ows of  lofty  beeches  there  was  always  the  dreaming 
peace  of  some  vast  cathedral.  The  sunlight  filtered 
through  the  boughs  far  overhead,  touching  to  a  vivid 
green  the  tiny  branches,  delicate  as  ferns,  that  sprouted 
from  the  massive  green-grey  boles,  and  it  dappled  the 
thick  bed  of  leaves  and  mould  and  mosses  that  lay  at 
their  base.  We  emerged  then  by  the  old  Chaussee  de 
Bruxelles  at  Quatre-Bras — not  the  Quatre-Bras  that 
evokes  the  memory  of  Napoleon,  of  Wellington  and  of 
Waterloo,  but  one  of  the  many  score  of  Quatre-Bras 

21 


BELGIUM 

scattered  over  Belgium — there  by  the  estaminet  where 
on  pleasant  afternoons  there  were  always  gay  throngs 
of  bicyclists  and  pedestrians,  taking  the  air  and  sipping 
their  beer  or  their  coffee  at  the  little  tables  set  out  on 
the  sidewalk.  And  then  just  beyond  the  lisiere  of  the 
forest  was  Bois  Fleuri;  such  was  its  perhaps  too  poetic 
name. 

It  was  built  in  the  modern  French  style,  of  red  brick 
with  white  stone  trimmings,  and  if  it  was  somewhat  too 
new,  if  it  had  not  yet  taken  on  the  patine  of  time  that 
would  have  brought  it  more  closely  into  harmony  with 
the  rest  of  Belgium,  its  clear  newness  meant  all  the 
modern  comforts,  the  only  thing  from  town  that  one 
would  take  to  the  country. 

And  perhaps  its  name  was  not  too  poetic  after  all, 
since  it  stood  in  a  flowering  wood,  a  hectare  of  land 
surrounded  on  three  sides  by  a  dark,  sweet  grove  of 
pines.  It  had  a  rose-garden  always  in  bloom;  the  roses 
climbed  up  the  fa9ade  of  the  house  and  over  the  terrace. 
There  was  a  little  lodge  where  lived  Victor,  the  gardener, 
who  spoke  the  odd  French  dialect  of  the  Walloon  prov- 
inces, and  in  an  enormous  cage  kept  a  fierce  Groenendael 
police-dog ;  one  might  stroll  down  there  and  look  at  the 
dog  with  all  the  sensations  of  looking  at  a  ferocious  wild 
beast  in  a  menagerie.  We  could  never  make  friends 
with  him,  though  Victor,  with  an  air  no  less  proudly 
conscious  than  that  of  a  lion-tamer,  would  enter  the  cage 
and  allow  the  dog  to  lick  his  face.  There  were  pleasant 
paths  among  the  trees  and  a  thicket  where  a  rabbit 
dwelt ;  he  came  out  at  times  to  nibble  at  the  rose  leaves, 
dwelling  in  the  peace  that  was  breathed  by  all  the  coun- 
try-side, until  one  morning  the  tragedy,  in  which  life 
abounds,  was  brought  back  to  us  by  a  scream  of  fear 

22 


BOIS  FLEURI 

and  pain  and  we  saw  a  dog  slinking  away,  and  after- 
wards : 

Mon  petit  lapin, 
A-t-il  du  chagrin? 
II  ne  saute  plus, 
Ne  cou — e  plus 
Dans  not'  jardin! 

From  our  terrace,  at  tea-time,  we  could  look  across 
the  lawn  and  the  roses  to  the  road  and  the  endless  fields 
that  sloped  away  with  their  wheat  and  rye  ripening  in 
the  sun,  over  to  the  little  cluster  of  red  roofs  that  marked 
the  ancient  village  of  Tervueren,  where  the  legend  of 
St.  Hubert,  the  blessed  patron  of  dogs,  had  its  begin- 
ning. Farther  on,  where  the  slender  spire  of  an  old 
church  pierced  the  tender  blue  sky,  a  windmill  lazily 
turned  its  sails  all  the  afternoon.  It  was  long  before  I 
knew  the  name  of  that  village;  I  did  not  wish  to  know 
it,  lest  the  delicate  charm  of  it  depart  on  acquaintance,  as 
charm  is  too  apt  to  do  with  villages  when  one  sees  them, 
or  with  mysterious  roads  when  one  explores  them,  or 
with  women — some  women — long  admired  at  a  distance, 
when  one  is  presented  and  for  the  first  time  hears  them 
speak. 

And  there  on  the  terrace  after  dinner,  in  the  long 
twilight,  we  had  our  coffee;  and  as  the  soft  voluptuous 
night  enveloped  that  tranquil,  peaceful  world  a  night- 
ingale poured  out  its  melody  from  the  dark  thicket 
which  was  so  very  near  that  we  could  fancy,  when  we 
stopped  our  idle  talking  and  held  our  breath,  that  we 
heard  the  breathing  of  that  rapturous  little  throat.  It 
would  not  sing  long;  it  knew,  consummate  little  artist 
that  it  was,  that  joy  increases  by  its  moderation,  and 

23 


BELGIUM 

that  rapture  grows  sweeter  as  it  is  withheld.  A  few 
moments  there  in  the  darkness,  with  its  hush,  its  mys- 
teries, and  its  low  voices,  and  I  would  go  upstairs  to  the 
manuscript  of  the  novel  which  I  thought  at  last  I  was  to 
write. 

I  had  never  heard  before  that  summer  a  nightingale 
sing.  But  one  evening,  just  as  the  twilight  was  fading 
from  the  fields — I  had  taken  a  turn  in  the  garden — 
suddenly,  as  I  entered  the  door,  that  shy,  sweet  melody 
flooded  the  still  evening.  I  knew  what  it  was,  and  yet 
there  might  be  some  mistake;  the  ironic  spirits  are  al- 
ways playing  such  sly  tricks  on  mortals!  One  grows 
wary  after  awhile,  of  life,  of  happiness. 

"C'est  un  rossignol,  n'est-ce  pas?''  I  asked  of  Omer. 

"Oui,  Excellence, ''  he  said,  and  the  gentle  smile  that 
was  so  characteristic  of  him  came  to  his  good  Flemish 
face. 

"Vous  en  etes  sur?" 

''Mais  oui.  Excellence;  nous  disons  'nachtegale'  en 
flamandf* 

"Et  nous  'nightingale'  en  anglais/' 

"Ouij  c'est  toujours  la  meme  chose." 

It  was  convincing,  and  I  could  accept  the  miracle,  just 
as  a  month  or  so  before  I  had  accepted  another  miracle 
that  was  so  much  like  this.  I  was  playing  golf  with 
Frank  Neilson  at  Ravenstein.  It  was  a  spring  day 
of  sparkling  sunlight  and  warm,  caressing  air.  We  were 
out  on  the  eleventh  hole;  we  had  played  our  brassies, 
and  there  remained  the  mashie  pitch  across  the  bunker 
to  the  sloping  green.  I  was  addressing  my  ball  when 
suddenly,  almost  from  under  my  very  feet  it  seemed, 
something  fluttered  lightly  into  the  air  and  went  on  into 
the  upper  ether,  whence  it  poured  forth  its 

24 


BOIS  FLEURI 

full  heart 
In  profuse  strains  of  unpremeditated  art. 

I  stood  and  gazed  upward,  enchanted.  I  knew  it  at 
once;  there  could  be  no  mistake. 

"It's  a  lark,"  I  said. 

"Yes,"  said  Neilson,  to  whose  English  eyes  and  ears 
this  wonder  was  not  new,  "yes,  it's  a  lark.  Play  your 
mashie!" 

I  played  it — into  the  bunker.  I  remember  it  all  with 
perfect  distinctness.  But  for  once  I  did  not  care.  I 
was  thinking  of  Shelley,  of  course. 

And  so  that  summer  brought  me  those  two  joys, 
which  only  Keats  and  Shelley  could  describe — two  joys 
that  in  their  simplicity,  their  evanescence,  and  their 
charm  stand  out  as  symbols  of  its  brevity. 


y 


THE   TE   DEUM 

The  work  at  the  Legation  was  light;  the  morning 
drive  through  that  noble  forest  into  drowsy  Brussels 
was  itself  a  delight,  and  in  the  afternoon  there  was  the 
round  of  golf  with  George  at  Ravenstein,  or  a  stroll 
along  the  country  roads  through  that  pleasant  Brabant 
country  to  one  of  the  little  Flemish  villages  nearby. 
We  had  as  guests  just  then  Mrs.  Sarah  M.  Boyd,  of 
Milwaukee,  a  friend  of  such  long  standing  in  our  affec- 
tions that  she  was  "Aunt  Sarah"  to  us,  and  I  had  as  a 
private  secretary  Mr.  •  George  Ross,  of  Toledo.  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Marshall  Sheppey  had  come  for  their  usual 
summer  outing  in  Europe ;  those  of  my  colleagues  who 
were  still  in  town  used  to  come  out  for  tea — Sir  Fran- 
cis Villiers,  the  British  Minister,  and  Jonckheer  de 
Weede,  the  Dutch  Minister.  And  there  was  a  happy 
day  when  my  friend  Richard  McGhee,  over  from  Lon- 
don on  some  mission  or  other,  for  the  Irish  party,  came 
to  luncheon;  he  was  full  of  the  news  of  the  home  rule 
struggle  in  Parliament.  We  were  reading  each  day  in 
the  Times  the  progress  of  the  "Ulster  rebellion" — bloom- 
ing large  in  the  world  just  then — that  is,  when  we  read 
the  papers:  I  used  to  let  them  lie  many  a  morning  un- 
opened, until  the  trial  of  the  Caillaux  case  came  on  at 
Paris ;  we  always  read  about  that,  with  the  interest  and 
amusement  French  processes  of  justice  always  have  for 
us  who  are  grounded  in  the  Common  Law  of  England, 

26 


THE  TE  DEUM 

though  they  come  to  about  the  same  thing  in  the  end  as 
our  own. 

I  can  recall  a  day — a  sinister  one  in  the  history  of  this 
world — when  for  a  moment  I  was  called  back  rudely  to 
the  realities  of  an  existence  that  those  days  of  blue  and 
gold  had  removed  far  from  my  thoughts.  I  was  sitting 
at  my  table,  and  through  the  open  window  there  came 
the  soft  air  of  the  late  June  morning,  with  the  odours 
and  the  sounds  of  the  country.  I  had  the  manuscript  of 
my  novel  before  me  and  I  was  far  away,  over  seas  and  in 
that  distant  past,  in  a  little  Ohio  town  that  was  for  the 
moment  far  more  real  to  me  than  Brussels,  and  I  was 
trying  to  make  it  as  real  to  those  who  perhaps  some  day 
might  idly  peruse,  on  some  such  summer  day  as  that,  the 
book  of  which  I  was  not  yet  sure.  And  yet  it  was  some- 
how just  beginning  to  take  form,  beginning  to  show 
some  signs  of  life:  at  times  some  of  the  characters  in  it 
gave  evidence  of  being  human  and  alive ;  they  were  be- 
ginning to  act  now  and  then  spontaneously,  beginning 
to  say  and  to  do  things  after  the  manner  of  human 
beings.  The  long  vista  before  me,  the  months  of  labori- 
ous drudging  toil  and  pain,  the  long  agony  of  effort 
necessary  to  write  any  book,  even  a  poor  one,  were  be- 
ginning to  appear  less  weary,  less  futile;  there  was  the 
first  faint  glow  of  the  joy  of  creative  work.  And  then 
suddenly  there  came  the  jingling  of  an  impatient  bell, 
the  imperative  mandate  of  the  telephone — that  most  irri- 
tating and  impertinent  of  modern  inventions,  that  inso' 
lent  and  inopportune  contrivance  that  makes  it  possible 
and,  what  is  worse,  permissible  for  any  one  and  every 
one  in  town  to  thrust  his  head  into  one's  dining-room 
when  one  is  at  dinner,  into  one's  bedroom  when  one  is 
asleep,  into  one's  closet  when  one  is  praying  and  to  bawl 

27 


BELGIUM 

into  one's  ear  whatever  stupidity  or  ineptie  he  may  have 
on  his  idle  mind!  ...  It  was,  however,  the  gentle 
Omer,  with  whom  one  never  could  be  impatient. 

''Excellence,  le  prince  heritier  d'Autriche  a  ete  as- 
sassine  a  Sarajevo!" 

Who,  and  where?  By  whom?  And  why?  I  had 
never  heard  of  Sarajevo;  I  had  not  the  least  idea  where 
it  was  in  this  world,  if  it  was  in  this  world.  It  was  not 
half  so  real  as  that  Ohio  town  which  I  was  trying  to 
evoke.  And  the  Crown  Prince  of  Austria  was  to  me  a 
most  immaterial  person — a  kind  of  wraith  wandering 
there  in  those  nether  regions  to  which  have  gone  so 
many  of  that  House  of  Hapsburg  which  seems  to  have 
suffered  in  itself  as  much  evil  as  it  has  caused  others  to 
suffer  in  this  world.  I  confess  that  it  seemed  a  rather 
unwarranted  intrusion  that  morning.  It  meant  for  me 
putting  aside  Macochee,  and  going  to  town  at  once; 
doubtless  there  would  be  a  book  to  sign  at  the  Austrian 
Legation.  .  .  . 

Two  or  three  days  later  there  was  the  solemn  requiem 
High  Mass  sung  for  the  repose  of  the  soul  of  the  mur- 
dered prince,  at  the  church  of  Saint-Jacques-sur-Cau- 
denberg.  There  we  were,  the  entire  diplomatic  corps, 
hurried  back  from  the  four  corners  of  Europe  to  as- 
semble again,  in  the  church  transformed  into  a  chapelle 
ardente  by  the  black  velvet  with  silver  broideries  with 
which  it  was  hung  and  the  black  catafalque  with  the 
Austrian  arms,  and  the  myriad  candles  crackling  and 
the  priests  serving  at  the  altar.  The  Nuncio  officiated 
at  the  Mass;  and  after  the  absolution  and  after  we  had 
all  filed  up  into  the  choir  and  each  taken  a  candle  and 
passed  before  the  priest  who  held  forth  the  paten  to 
be  kissed,  and  after  we  had  expressed  our  condolences 

28 


THE  TE  DEUM 

to  our  colleague,  Count  Clary  et  Aldringen,  the  Aus- 
trian Minister,  we  went  out  into  the  portico  of  the 
church  and  there  a  few  moments  loitered  to  gossip,  to 
ask  the  news — with  little  thought,  I  fear,  for  the  poor 
Prince  in  whose  honour  the  imposing  ceremony  had  been 
held. 

The  motors  were  rolling  up,  and  I  rode  away  across 
the  square  in  the  rain  and  around  by  the  drenched  Park 
and  then  finally  oiF  through  the  forest,  where  the  rain 
was  dripping  sadly  on  the  thick  mosses. 

I  read  the  papers  more  carefully  after  that,  but  in  a 
few  days  the  world  seemed  to  have  forgotten  and  went 
on  about  its  various  affairs,  and  as  it  had  done  so  many 
times  before,  abandoned  the  fire  smouldering  there  in 
the  Balkans  to  the  diplomatists,  in  the  old  assurance 
that  they  would  smother  it  with  their  notes. 

And  June  passed  and  July  came.  Aunt  Sarah  mo- 
tored off  to  the  Vosges  to  take  the  cure,  and  George 
went  for  a  holiday  trip  through  Germany ;  and  the  days 
went  by — days  of  blue  and  gold,  the  lovely  land  drows- 
ing, its  fields  ripening  under  the  sun  and  settling  in 
droning  content.  There  was  the  pleasant  drive  in  the 
morning  through  the  green  forest  to  the  Legation,  now 
and  then  a  call  at  the  Foreign  Office,  the  cool  half- 
deserted  ministeres  there  in  the  Rue  de  la  Loi — quite  the 
sleepiest  places  in  town.  There  was  golf  in  the  after- 
noon at  Ravenstein,  where  the  larks  were  forever  rain- 
ing down  music  from  the  skies,  and  in  the  adjoining 
fields  the  happy  peasants  at  their  picturesque  labour. 
There  was  tea  on  the  lawn  that  was  so  bright  with  the 
colours  of  the  women's  toilettes,  and  girls  in  white  play- 
ing tennis  in  a  bower  of  roses,  and  the  long  cool  avenue 
of  beech-trees;  and  dinner,  and  coffee  on  the  terrace. 

29     . 


BELGIUM 

And  then  up  to  my  room,  when  all  the  house  was  still 
and  the  night  dreaming  without,  and  the  manuscript  of 
my  novel. 

The  twenty-first  of  July  is  the  Belgian  National  holi- 
day, and  on  that  day  a  Te  Deum  is  always  sung  at  Ste.- 
Gudule,  in  honour  of  the  august  founder  of  the  dynasty, 
Leopold  I.  The  whole  city  was  en  fete,  the  black,  yel- 
low and  red  flag  of  Belgium — the  old  flag  of  that  Bel- 
gium which  for  one  short  year  at  the  time  of  the  French 
Revolution  was  a  republic,  Les  l^tats  Beiges  Unis,  mod- 
elled after  the  young  United  States  of  America — was 
flying  everywhere.  The  boulevards  were  thronged  and 
the  streets  of  the  lower  town  were  filled  with  the  Brussels 
crowd  that  is  at  most  times  so  spontaneously,  so  al- 
most naively,  gay.  From  early  morning  long  queues 
had  stretched  away  down  the  streets  before  the  theatres, 
that  day  opened  freely  to  the  public.  The  trains  were 
crowded  with  people  seeking  the  shade  of  le  Bois  de  la 
Cambre,  or  la  Foret  de  Soignes,  or  en  route  to  the  great 
field  at  Stockel  where  the  aviation-meet  was  in  progress 
that  week.  There,  too,  were  great  crowds  in  la  Place 
du  Parvis,  before  Ste.  Gudule,  waiting  for  a  glimpse 
of  the  royal  family.  "Uniforms  and  decorations,"  the 
Minister  for  Foreign  Afl'airs  had  said,  which  meant  for 
me  the  trying  ordeal  of  evening  clothes  in  the  bright 
glare  of  noonday. 

The  old  cathedral,  or,  to  be  more  exact — since  Brus- 
sels is  not  the  seat  of  a  bishopric — the  old  church,  the  col- 
legial  of  St.-Michel  and  Ste.-Gudule,  was  crowded  again 
for  one  of  those  scenes  it  had  been  witnessing  for  eight 
centuries.  The  soft  light  that  fell  into  the  nave  that 
morning  touched  the  brilliant  uniforms  of  the  represen- 
tatives of  the  Army,  the  government,  the  deplomatic 

.    30 


THE  TE  DEUM 

corps.  There  were  judges  in  their  scarlet  robes,  and 
priests  and  bishops  in  their  sacerdotal  garments,  there 
were  tonsured  monks,  and  here  and  there  the  white  robe 
of  a  Dominican  friar  or  the  brown  of  a  Franciscan  monk, 
his  bare  feet  in  sandals.  From  the  entrance  to  the  tran- 
sept in  the  Treurenberg  there  was  a  double  hedge  of 
grenadiers  in  their  tall  bearskins,  and  a  broad  crimson 
carpet  that  led  up  to  the  altar,  and  at  all  the  grey  old  pil- 
lars of  nave  and  transept  there  were  trophies  of  flags  and 
banners.  There  was  the  stir  and  rustle  of  a  happy 
throng,  elated  by  all  the  light  and  colour — a  pleasant 
exhilaration,  suppressed  to  a  gravity  by  the  place  and 
the  scene.  Not  only  were  all  the  personalities  of  the 
town  there,  but  there  were  the  mysterious  presences  of 
those  historic  characters  that  in  other  days  had  trailed 
their  fleeting  glories  there. 

We  had  taken  our  appointed  places  in  the  choir. 
There  were  the  usual  greetings,  smiles,  hand-clasps,  the 
customary  gossip.  Then  suddenly  the  drums  began  to 
roll,  the  trumpets  blew  and  through  the  lofty  arches 
there  rang  a  voice,  in  military  command,  hard,  like  steel : 
"Presentez  armesl" 

There  was  the  sharp  rattle  of  the  muskets  as  the 
grenadiers  came  to  present  arms.  And  then  the  uniso- 
nant  cry:   "Vive  le  Roi!*' 

Their  Majesties,  accompanied  by  their  suites,  came 
slowly  forward  and  up  the  steps  into  the  choir,  pausing 
for  the  reverence  at  the  altar,  then  for  the  ceremonial 
bow  to  the  representatives  of  the  nations  of  the  world, 
then  to  the  representatives  of  Belgium,  and  passed  to 
the  two  thrones  placed  for  them  on  the  right  of  the  altar. 
The  great  organ  began  to  roll;  the  three  priests  at  the 
altar,  in  their  gold  copes,  began  to  chant  the  Te  Deum, 

31 


BELGIUM 

The  royal  family  made  an  interesting  picture.  The 
King,  tall,  broad-shouldered,  tanned  somewhat  from 
his  outing  by  the  sea — he  had  just  come  from  Ostend — 
was  in  the  lieutenant-general's  uniform  he  always 
wears;  behind  the  thick  lenses  of  his  pince-nez  his  in- 
telligent eyes  were  taking  in  the  scene,  noting  who  were 
there.  The  Queen,  frail,  delicate,  with  the  unconscious 
appeal  of  sweet,  girlish  eyes,  ^d  the  delicate,  sensitive 
mouth,  had  the  three  royal  children  beside  her:  the  two 
princes,  Leopold,  the  Duke  of  Brabant,  and  Charles, 
the  Count  of  Flanders,  grave,  fair,  slender  boys  in 
broad  batiste  collars  and  grey  satin  suits,  and  the  Prin- 
cess Marie  Jose,  with  her  pretty,  mischievous,  little  face 
and  elfish  tangle  of  crisply  curling  golden  hair — the 
child  that  all  the  painters  and  all  the  sculptors  of  Bel- 
gium have  portrayed  over  and  over.  .  .  . 

I  stood  there  and  watched  that  most  interesting  fam- 
ily— a  very  model,  in  its  affection,  and  in  the  sober  good 
sense  of  the  young  parents,  of  all  the  domestic  virtues. 
And  I  thought  of  the  other  kings  and  queens  and 
princes  and  princesses  that  had  stood  in  that  very  spot — 
the  two  Leopolds,  father  and  son,  the  first  of  this  short 
dynasty,  so  unlike  each  other,  so  unlike  the  King  who 
stood  there  on  that  July  morning. 

The  Duchess  of  Parma  had  knelt  at  that  high  altar, 
William  I  of  Holland,  had  been  crowned  there,  and 
Peter  the  Great  had  marvelled  at  the  strangely  carved 
pulpit  at  Verbrugghen,  the  sumptuous  chapel  of  the 
Holy  Sacrament  the  precious  windows  painted  by  Ro- 
zier,  the  statues  of  the  twelve  apostles.  There  Philip  II 
had  caused  to  be  celebrated  the  funeral  service  of 
Charles  V;  there  the  Dukes  of  Brabant  and  the  Dukes 
of  Burgundy  lie  buried;  there  was  held  the  funeral  of 

32 


THE  TE  DEUM 

Frederic  de  Merode,  the  patriot  who  fell  mortally 
wounded  at  Berchem ;  and  there  had  been  observed  the 
stately  ceremonies  of  two  chapters  of  the  Order  of  the 
Golden  Fleece. 

I  looked  at  that  grave,  slender  lad,  His  Royal  High- 
ness Prince  Leopold  Philippe  Charles  Albert  Meinrad 
Hubertus  Marie  Miguel,  Duke  of  Brabant,  Prince  of 
Belgium,  Duke  of  Saxe,  Prince  of  Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, 
gazing  out  of  those  wide  boyish  eyes  at  that  scene  of 
splendour.  What  were  the  thoughts  just  then  in  that 
child's  mind  ?  Were  there  any  conceptions  of  the  tragic 
mutations  of  Belgian  history?  Would  he  one  day, 
in  other  scenes  like  this,  when  others  should  have  taken 
our  places,  stand  there  where  his  father  stood,  while 
priests  sang  Te  Deums  in  his  honour? 


VI 


A  TRAGEDY 


How  distinctly  the  memories  of  that  day  come  to 
mind!  The  luncheon  with  Gibson  in  the  crowded  cafe 
at  a  little  table  under  the  awning  on  the  sidewalk;  the 
bright  glitter  of  the  sun  in  the  streets,  the  clatter  of  the 
fiacres  over  the  rough  paving-stones,  and  the  Brussels 
crowd  gay  on  its  holiday.  The  Avenue  de  Tervueren 
was  thronged  as  I  drove  back  to  Bois  Fleuri  in  the  after- 
noon; the  trams  were  packed.  Everybody,  after  the 
spectacle  at  mid-day  at  Ste.-Gudule,  was  bound  for 
Stockel  to  see  the  exhibition  of  flying,  the  Franco-Bel- 
gian aeroplane  competition  that  had  been  in  progress  all 
that  week.  We  had  not  gone,  since  we  had  comfortable 
seats  in  the  belvedere  of  our  own  house,  and  a  much  finer 
view  than  we  could  have  in  the  stands  at  Stockel,  without 
the  contact  with  the  crowd.  A  much  finer  view  indeed  I 
Far  over  the  waving  tops  of  the  trees  we  could  see  Brus- 
sels lying  in  the  plain,  the  great  bulk  of  the  buildings  at 
the  Cinquantenaire,  the  dim  white  mass  of  the  Palais  de 
Justice,  and  amidst  the  domes  and  towers,  if  one  knew 
where  to  look  and  peered  sharply  enough,  the  delicate 
spire  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  a  slender  silvery  needle  in 
the  distance.  And  looking  to  the  north,  there  was  the 
tower  of  the  cathedral  at  Malines ;  the  lovely  panorama 
of  the  Brabant  plain  was  spread  before  us;  one  might 
imagine  that  one  saw  the  lowlands  of  Flanders  over  the 
vague  horizon  to  the  west. 

Every  afternoon  we  had  gone  up  there  and  watched 

34 


A  TRAGEDY 

the  aeroplanes  in  utter  grace  rise  and  soar  and  dip  and 
dive  and  rise  again  in  their  amazing  evolutions.  Olies- 
lager,  the  best  of  Belgian  flyers,  was  there,  and  Pegoud, 
the  great  Frenchman,  who  so  short  a  time  before  had 
astonished  the  world  by  looping  the  loop.  Up  and  up 
they  would  mount,  in  gigantic  spirals,  and  then,  there  at 
that  dizzy  altitude,  poise,  hang  motionless  and  still  in 
the  upper  airs,  immobile  as  the  buzzards  at  which  I  used 
to  gaze  as  a  boy  in  Ohio,  and  then  suddenly  dart  down- 
ward, checked  in  their  fall,  turn  over,  turn  over  again, 
and  then  again  and  again  and  again  and  yet  again — 
six  times ! — and  at  last  dive  swiftly  downward,  to  be  lost 
to  sight  behind  the  dark  bank  of  trees.  A  breathless 
instant  and  then  there  would  come  to  us  the  sound  of 
far-oif  cheering  and  the  distant  strains  of  the  bands  as 
they  played  the  "Brabancjonne"  or  the  "Marseillaise." 
It  was  a  sight  of  endless  interest  and  fascination,  exhila- 
rating and  inspiring — man's  airy  triumph  over  the  last 
of  the  intractable  elements  with  which  he  had  been  strug- 
gling for  ages,  the  apotheosis  of  human  aspiration,  with 
implications  of  beauty  beyond  the  wings  of  the  imag- 
ination. My  mind  would  go  back  to  the  Ohio  town,  so 
near  to  which  my  father  was  born;  I  could  remember 
the  early  experiments  of  the  brothers,  Wright,  working 
with  persevering  patience,  in  the  midst  of  provincial 
skepticism,  to  realize  their  ideal.  They  used  to  call  them 
"the  crazy  Wrights,"  and  one  old  man  had  said  to  one 
of  them: 

"My  boy,  no  one  will  ever  invent  a  machine  that  will 
fly  and  if  any  one  does  he  won't  come  from  Dayton." 

And  now  their  dream  had  come  true,  this  lovely  real- 
ity there  before  my  eyes  above  the  Brabant  plain ! 

One  of  those  evenings,  calm  and  still,  in  a  trans- 

35 


BELGIUM 

parent  sky  a  pretty  thing  had  occurred.  After  OHes- 
lager  and  Pegoud  had  performed  their  miracles  three 
swallows  flew  up  before  us,  and  seemed  in  the  fore- 
shortened perspective  to  take  the  very  places  in  the 
luminous  heavens  that  the  larger  human  birds  had  just 
quitted;  they  too  mounted  in  spirals  even  more  graceful, 
they  paused  and  poised  on  delicate  wing,  and  then  they 
dived  and  tumbled  there  in  the  soft  clear  air,  turning 
over  and  over,  looping  the  loop,  not  six  but  dozens  of 
times,  just  as  though  they  had  awaited  their  turn,  and 
had  said:  "Now  we'll  show  you  how  this  thing  should 
be  done."  It  was  the  prettiest  performance  one  could 
imagine.  The  servants  had  come  up  to  the  roof  to  watch 
the  spectacle,  and  when  the  birds  had  done  and  flown 
away,  Colette  said: 

''Maintenant,  Excellence,  les  oiseauw  disent  queucc 
seuls  savent  faire  ce  true,  et  on  pent  descendre/' 

And  we  went  down.  We  never  cared,  somehow,  to 
wait  and  see  the  number  that  concluded  the  perform- 
ance— the  woman  in  tights  who  mounted  with  her  hus- 
band in  a  biplane  and  descended  in  a  parachute ;  it  had 
seemed  to  us  like  some  cheap  trick  of  the  circus,  out  of 
place  in  that  serious  triumph  of  science  and  human  will. 

After  tea  we  went  for  a  walk  with  Mademoiselle  P — , 
who  was  staying  with  us  for  a  few  days.  We  went 
out  the  Chaussee  de  Malines  toward  the  little  village  of 
Wesembeek,  where  there  was  a  Flemish  kermesse  that 
Verhaeren  might  have  described  or  Teniers  painted.  As 
we  were  coming  back  the  hot  day  turned  excessively 
sultry,  ominous  black  clouds  were  piling  in  the  west,  a 
storm  was  coming  up.  Just  as  we  turned  into  the  little 
road  that  led  to  Bois  Fleuri  the  biplane  with  the  woman 
of  the  parachute  rose  in  the  lowering  sky;  it  paused  an 

36 


A  TRAGEDY 

instant  over  the  trees.    A  bevy  of  Flemish  peasant  chil- 
dren were  pointing  excitedly  upward  and  crying: 

''VUeg  machine!  Vlieg  machine!'* 

"Regardez-la!''  I  said. 

''Mais  non!'*  said  Mademoiselle,  turning  away.  "Je 
n'aime  pas  ces  histoires-la!" 

She  gave  a  nervous  shudder  and  impulsively  covered 
her  face  with  her  hands.  There  was  something  of  pre- 
sentiment in  the  movement  and  in  the  moment.  I 
looked;  the  biplane  shot  suddenly  down  behind  the 
trees.  We  reached  the  house  a  moment  later  and  the 
storm  broke — an  electrical  storm  of  almost  tropical  vio- 
lence. Half  an  hour  later  Joseph  came  to  me  with  an  • 
excited  face  and  said: 

''Excellence,  la  femme  a  ete  tuee!'* 

I  did  not  believe  it  and  I  thought  no  more  of  it.  Some 
American  friends,  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Snyder,  were  there  to 
dinner,  and  we  sat  on  the  terrace  after  dinner  talking  of 
home.  The  soft  air  was  moist  from  the  storm  but  the 
rain  no  longer  fell ;  now  and  then  great  sheets  of  light- 
ning quivered  over  all  the  humid  fields,  then  the  soft 
darkness  closed  in  again;  the  nightingale  did  not  sing. 

The  next  morning,  when  Colette  brought  me  my  tea 
and  toast,  she  said: 

"Oui,  Excellence,  la  pauvre  femme  a  ete  tuee  hier 
soir/* 

The  newspapers  were  full  of  it,  telling  how  the  hus- 
band had  knelt  over  the  broken  form  of  the  wife  lying 
there  in  her  spangles  on  the  plain  at  Stockel,  and  how 
he  had  cried  over  and  over : 

"Oh,  ma  paiMvre  petite  ponpee!  Ma  pauvre  petite 
poupee!'' 

And  because  one  life  had  come  to  so  sudden  an  end 

37 


BELGIUM 

there,  on  that  tragic  evening,  the  newspapers  printed 
long  columns  giving  all  the  details,  and  we  were  some- 
how depressed  all  that  day  because  death  had  struck 
so  near. 


VII 


ULTIMATA 

On  Saturday  morning,  the  twenty-fifth  of  July,  I  had 
just  seated  myself  at  my  table  and  was  yielding  to  all 
those  trifling  temptations  by  which  the  indolent  will 
postpones  the  task  of  composition — sharpening  lead  pen- 
cils, aligning  them  on  the  desk,  arranging  notes  and 
paper,  looking  out  the  window  at  the  summer  day — and 
the  golf-links  so  near ! — and  at  last,  having  exhausted  all 
the  possibilities  of  petty  occupations  which  by  a  trick  of 
the  lazy  mind  might  serve  as  excuses  for  procrastina- 
tion, I  was  about  to  go  to  work  when  the  morning  papers 
were  sent  up.  I  would  glance  over  the  report  of  the 
Caillaux  case,  at  any  rate,  though  the  full  reports  were 
in  the  Paris  papers  which  Omer  would  bring  out  at 
noon.  I  picked  up  L'Etoile  Beige,  and  there  was  the 
ultimatum  which  the  Austrian  Government  had  sent  to 
Servia  on  Thursday  evening. 

There  had  been  references  to  it  in  the  newspapers  of 
Friday.  Over  at  Ravenstein,  as  I  stood  on  the  terrace 
chatting  with  Sir  Francis  Villiers,  Mr.  Paul  Hymans, 
the  parliamentary  leader  of  the  Belgian  liberals,  had 
come  up  and  said: 

"It  looks  serious." 

We  thought  for  the  moment  that  he  referred  to  the 
troubles  in  Ulster,  but  no,  he  said;  Austria  had  sent  an 
ultimatum  to  Servia.  But  ultimata  were  not  so  infre- 
quent in  Balkan  diplomacy,  and  we  had  been  too  much 
absorbed  in  pleasanter  things!    But  here  it  was  in  full; 

39 


BELGIUM 

I  read  it  through,  marvelling  more  and  more  at  the 
amazing  brutality  of  its  successive  exigencies,  that 
ended  on  the  peremptory  note  of  demand  for  a  reply 
within  forty-eight  hours.  The  delay  was  even  then  al- 
most up ;  any  one  could  see  that  it  meant  but  one  thing — 
war,  for  surely  no  nation  could  yield  to  such  a  summons ! 
The  smouldering  fire  in  the  Balkans  would  break  out 
again !  Could  the  flames  be  confined  to  that  area  by  the 
diplomacy  that  twice  before  in  recent  years  had  suc- 
ceeded in  doing  that,  or  would  they  spread  and  involve 
all  Europe?    The  mind  for  a  moment  was  aghast  at  the 

thought,  and  then But  no !    Impossible  in  our  day, 

humanity  advanced  as  it  is,  at  an  epoch  where  as  never 
before  the  spirit  of  good  will  is  working  in  men.  I  read 
the  dispatches  from  the  various  capitals ;  the  thing  could 
not  be.  Diplomacy  would  find  a  way;  there  would  be 
discussions  and  pourparlers  and  exchange  of  notes.  The 
Balkans  were  far  away  from  the  field  of  American 
thought  and  preoccupation,  and  far  away  from  snug 
little  Belgium,  safe  in  its  neutrality;  far  away  surely 
from  Bois  Fleuri,  tucked  away  there  among  its  roses 
and  its  grove  of  sweet-smelling  pines,  the  wide  fields 
about  almost  audibly  purring  with  peace  and  content- 
ment. War! — on  such  a  summer  morning!  Let  the 
Balkans  settle  their  rascally  quarrels  among  them- 
selves; what  had  we  to  do  with  them? 

I  thrust  aside  UEtoile,  hitched  up  my  chair  to  my 
desk  and  went  to  work.     I  wrote  until  noon. 

The  Marquis  of  Villalobar,  my  Spanish  colleague,  an 
old  friend  whom  I  had  known  in  America,  was  coming  to 
luncheon  that  day,  and  when  he  arrived  the  Austrian 
ultimatum,  of  course,  came  up  at  once.  I  can  see  him 
now  as  he  stood  there  in  our  small  salon,  shrugging  his 

40 


ULTIMATA 

stout  "Castilian  shoulders  at  mention  of  it.  The  word 
so  often  lightly  spoken  came  to  our  lips  and  suddenly 
assumed  the  sinister  connotation  it  should  always  bear, 
and  as  it  was  uttered  now  it  had  a  new  dread  sound. 
War!  We  speculated,  to  no  purpose  of  course,  and 
spoke  of  the  fortunate  neutrality  of  Belgium. 

"At  any  rate,"  the  Marquis  said  as  we  were  going 
out  to  luncheon,  "we  have  a  comfortable  loge  from  which 
to  watch  the  performance." 

It  was  a  thought  in  which  there  was  comfort ;  we  could 
hug  it  to  ourselves  in  the  inveterate  and  persistent  self- 
ishness of  our  deplorable  human  nature,  fling  aside  our 
preoccupation,  and  talk  of  the  Caillaux  case,  of  French 
politics,  of  Washington,  or  of  the  visit  the  Marquis  had 
once  made  us  at  Toledo.  He  was  on  his  way  to  the 
Chateau  de  Dave,  near  Namur,  to  spend  the  week-end 
with  an  aunt,  and  shortly  after  luncheon  he  drove  away 
in  the  rain,  in  his  big  green  English  car,  behind  Griffin, 
his  English  chauffeur,  who  seemed  so  integral  a  part 
of  it. 

The  next  day,  Sunday,  we  went  to  Antwerp,  my 
wife  and  I,  to  meet  the  Lapland,  which  was  bringing  our 
mothers  from  America.  The  delay  fixed  in  the  Austrian 
ultimatum  had  expired,  on  that  dull  Sunday  of  dismal 
rain,  and  yet  there  was  no  war — the  world  was  quite 
normal.  Dawdling  about  the  Hotel  St.-Antoine  at 
Antwerp  I  asked  the  old  Swiss  porter — one  asks  por- 
ters everything — and  he  said  there  would  be  no  war; 
he  said  it  was  impossible.    Of  course! 

We  had  to  stop  over  at  Antwerp  for  the  night;  the 
Lapland  was  lying  outside  waiting  for  the  tide  and 
would  not  dock  before  Monday,  and  it  was,  indeed,  late 
on  Monday  afternoon  before  the  great  bulk  of  the 

41 


BELGIUM 

steamship,  enveloped  in  the  mystery  of  its  long  voyage, 
loomed  in  the  rain  across  the  misty  Teaches  of  the 
Scheldt.  The  ship  came  up  to  her  wharf  and  the  happy 
passengers  came  ashore,  ready  to  scatter  over  Europe 
on  their  summer  holiday — and  there  were  the  mothers! 

Brussels  was  calm  at  the  beginning  of  that  week  and 
we  were  all  more  or  less  unconscious,  or  more  or  less  in- 
sensible. We  spoke  of  war,  accustomed  ourselves  to  the 
word,  at  least,  but  when  we  thought  or  spoke  of  it,  it 
was  in  the  sense  of  security — of  that  inveterate  human 
egoism  which  leads  one  to  think  that  an  evil  will  not 
come,  or  if  it  does,  that  it  will  pass  by  and  leave  one 
untouched. 

The  newspapers  of  Tuesday  published  Austria's  dec- 
laration of  war  against  Servia.  England  and  France 
and  Russia  were  sounding  the  Cabinet  at  Vienna,  seek- 
ing some  means  of  satisfying  her  demands  without  hos- 
tilities. On  Wednesday  President  Poincare,  overtaken 
by  a  wireless  message  on  the  sea,  returned  in  haste  to 
Paris  from  his  visit  to  Scandinavia,  and — a  return  that 
had  for  us  a  more  personal  interest — Aunt  Sarah  came 
back,  arriving  with  the  breathless  air  of  one  who  has 
raced  home  just  before  a  storm;  she  had  motored  in 
haste  back  from  the  Vosges.  We  had  just  received  the 
news  that  the  Austrian  cannon  had  bombarded  Bel- 
grade. 

But  that  was  general,  remote,  like  President  Poin- 
care's  return  to  the  Elysee.  Aunt  Sarah  had  something 
personal  to  relate,  far  more  moving  tales  to  tell  of  her 
experiences  at  Nancy.  No  one  would  change  her  money 
for  her;  everywhere  she  had  been  jostled  by  moving 
troops.  I  think  we  were  somewhat  sceptical  of  that; 
there  had  been  no  mobilization,  we  insisted. 

42 


ULTIMATA 

And  she  had  a  grievance,  one  of  the  most  personal  a 
woman  can  know,  since  it  had  to  do  with  douanes.  She 
had  bought  a  quantity  of  the  famous  linen  of  the  Vos- 
ges,  and  her  rigid  Puritan  conscience  had  moved  her  to 
have  the  hnen  shipped  to  her,  instead  of  packing  it  in 
her  trunks.  But  at  the  frontier  there  was  such  com- 
motion, such  confusion,  that  the  inspectors  chalked  her 
trunks  hastily  without  so  much  as  opening  them.  They 
vouchsafed  only  a  cursory  glance  into  the  motor,  and 
there  their  eyes  lighted  on  two  golden  melons,  hastily 
bought  at  Nancy,  whose  picturesque  market  was  not  to 
be  resisted,  and  rolled  into  the  car,  and  upon  these  the 
inspector  seized  and  made  her  pay  a  heavy  duty — that 
Belgian  melons  might  be  protected,  I  suppose,  and  that 
the  ironic  spirits  might  laugh  at  her  conscientiousness  in 
the  matter  of  the  linen,  which  might  as  well  have  been  in 
those  unopened  trunks.  Aunt  Sarah  insisted  that  uni- 
versal war  was  imminent,  but  we  were  not  yet  con- 
vinced; at  any  rate,  was  not  Belgium's  neutrality  guar- 
anteed in  solemn  treaties? 

All  that  she  knew,  as  she  admitted  frankly,  was  that 
she  was  glad  to  get  home;  but  we  must  start  off  soon 
again  and  motor  down  to  Dinant,  that  gem  that  crowned 
the  Meuse.  And  we  began  to  plan  the  journey  to 
Dinant,  until  I  took  up  the  papers  to  read  Maitre  La- 
bori's  plaidoirie  in  defense  of  Madame  Caillaux;  the 
newspapers,  indeed,  gave  more  columns  to  that  cause 
celehre  than  to  the  discussions  in  the  larger  court.  Sir 
Edward  Grey  was  making  another  effort  to  do  what  he 
had  done  two  years  before — confine  the  war  to  the  Bal- 
kan states  by  a  conference  at  London.  He  had  sent  a  dis- 
patch to  Sir  Edward  Goschen,  the  British  Ambassador 
at  Berlin,  to  propose  to  Germany  that  Austria  be  in- 

43 


BELGIUM 

fluenced  to  occupy  Belgrade  provisionally  while  the 
Powers  sought  the  terms  of  an  accord.  The  proposal 
was  welcomed  by  France  and  Russia. 

What  would  Germany  do?  The  decision  rested  with 
her.    We  waited  for  news  from  Berlin. 

It  was  now  no  longer  a  question  of  days  but  of  hours ; 
and  then  even  of  minutes,  which  throbbed  by  in  an  at- 
mosphere that  was  charged  with  dreadful  potentialities. 
One  was  sensible  of  it  in  all  the  faces,  usually  so  pre- 
occupied, that  flitted  by  one  in  the  street :  almost  in  the 
hard  glitter  of  the  splendid  sun  that  shone  on  those  fate- 
ful days. 

And  yet  there  was  a  strange  normality,  a  persistent, 
almost  inappropriate,  usualness  in  ordinary  things;  life 
went  on  quite  the  same.  The  Legation  was  quiet,  de- 
serted, dull.  Gibson  and  I  strolled  down  to  the  Caveau 
de  Paris,  the  little  restaurant  in  the  Rue  du  Marche  aux 
Herbes,  where  diplomats  were  always  to  be  found  at 
noon,  and  where  one  could  always  pick  up  the  gossip  of 
our  world;  but  there,  everything  was  as  it  had  been. 
Count  van  der  Straeten  Ponthos,  of  the  Belgian  Foreign 
Office,  was  sitting  in  his  place  in  the  corner  where  the 
luncheon-hour  always  found  him,  with  his  coffee  and  his 
cigar,  taking  his  little  after-luncheon  nap.  I  can  see 
now  the  young  Prince  Georges  de  Ligne  at  one  of  the 
tables,  turning  about  to  greet  us,  a  brilliant  smile  on 
his  handsome  face.  .  .  .  We  talked,  indeed,  more  of  the 
acquittal  of  Madame  Caillaux,  just  pronounced  by  the 
Cour  d' Assises,  than  of  war. 

The  socialists  were  to  hold  a  monster  meeting  that 
night;  numerous  speeches  were  to  be  made,  of  course, 
invoking  that  article  of  their  creed  which  provides  the 
specific  panacea  for  war.    Jean  Jaures  was  to  speak,  and 

44 


ULTIMATA 

I  had  the  notion  of  going  to  hear  him  but  I  did  not ;  it 
was  rather  a  long  way  from  Bois  Fleuri.  I  regret  now 
that  I  did  not. 

Still  we  waited  for  news  from  Berlin.  One  man  could 
stop  this  thing;  and  there  was  stillness,  an  immense,  pre- 
posterous, fateful  stillness  that  seemed  to  fill  the  uni- 
verse, as  mankind  waited  for  the  word  from  William 
Hohenzollern. 

Never  had  diplomatist  written  an  appeal  more  beauti- 
ful in  all  that  it  implied  for  the  peace  of  the  world  and 
for  the  happiness  of  mankind  than  that  dispatch  sent  by 
Sir  Edward  Grey  from  Downing  Street  to  the  Wil- 
helmstrasse.  And  as  millions  waited,  we  waited;  the 
best  in  one  could  not  give  up  the  hope  that  such  an  op- 
portunity held  out.  But  the  word  did  not  come,  the  one 
man  did  not  speak.  Instead  there  came  the  clash  of 
arms;  the  stillness  was  broken  by  the  rumble  of  mo- 
bilized cannon,  and  an  ultimatmn  was  flashed  to  St. 
Petersburg. 

And  yet,  strange  enough  for  us  of  the  little  household 
at  Bois  Fleuri,  the  whole  problem,  too  stupendous  to  be 
grasped  by  one  mind,  had  reduced  itself,  as  things  will 
in  great  crises,  to  one  small  personal  question,  namely: 
Would  Omer  be  called  to  the  colours  ? 

Omer  was  a  gentle  soul,  with  a  spirit  far  removed 
from  the  brutality  of  war.  We  were  all  fond  of  him. 
He  had  finished  his  military  service  years  before ;  he  had 
been  in  the  carahirders.  He  was  in  the  eleventh  class  of 
reserves,  and  that  figure  eleven  came  to  have  for  us  a 
terrible  significance.  For  days  the  mobilisation  of  the 
Belgian  army  had  been  in  progress,  already  troops  were 
on  the  frontier  to  protect  the  nation's  neutrality.  The 
King  had  returned  from  Ostend — or  had  never  gone 

45 


BELGIUM 

back  there  after  the  Te  Deum.  There  were  lights  in  the 
ministries  all  night,  and  in  the  Palace,  where  councils  of 
state  were  in  progress.  But  to  us  Omer  somehow  sym- 
bolized the  whole  international  situation.  Would  he 
have  to  go  or  not?  He  went  about,  calm,  unperturbed, 
smiling.  I  used  to  stop  at  the  Galeries  du  Roi  with  the 
crowds  at  a  bulletin-board,  to  see  what  classes  had  been 
called;  one  afternoon  I  read  that  the  ninth  class  of  re- 
serves had  just  been  called.  .  .  .  Omer's  was  the  elev- 
enth.    It  was  Friday,  the  thirty-first  of  July. 


VIII 


CEST   LA   GUERRE 


I  WAS  awakened  suddenly  out  of  a  sound  sleep  by  a 
light,  apologetic  and  yet  insistent  knock  at  my  door.  It 
was  six  o'clock  on  Saturday,  the  first  of  August.  I  got 
up,  opened  the  door,  and  there  stood  Omer,  in  uniform, 
the  rough  blue  tunic,  the  linen  pantaloons  and  the  little 
bonnet  de  police.  He  stood  at  attention,  his  hand  at  the 
salute. 

"C'est  la  guerre,  ExcellenceT 

The  words,  of  course,  were  superfluous.  Omer  stand- 
ing there  ready  to  depart  was  the  living  symbol  of  the 
thing  we  had  feared  for  a  week.  He  was  in  a  hurry; 
he  had  to  get  to  town,  report,  and  go  to  Liege  at  once. 
I  fumbled  through  my  porte-monnaie,  gave  him  all  the 
money  that  I  had,  while  he  told  me  the  latest  news :  the 
Germans  had  invaded  the  Grand  Duchy  of  Luxem- 
burg and  were  throwing  down  the  bridges.  I  told  him 
I  might  have  him  excused,  but  no. 

'^Je  ferai  mon  devoir,"  he  said. 

I  shook  his  hand,  he  smiled  in  the  tender,  gentle  way 
he  had,  and  went  down  stairs  and  was  gone. 

I  dressed,  had  my  tea,  and  gave  the  order  to  move  back 
to  town.  All  day  the  servants  were  packing  up,  and 
late  in  the  afternoon  we  were  ready  to  leave  the  lovely 
spot  where  we  had  spent  two  such  happy  months.  I 
gathered  together  my  papers,  the  manuscript  of  my 
novel,  beginning  to  attain  a  respectable  size.  I  put  it  in 
a  dispatch-box  and  went  across  the  hall  to  see  if  I  had 

47 


BELGIUM 

left  anything — to  have  that  last  look  with  which  we  will 
stab  ourselves  in  moments  of  departure. 

I  found  my  wife  in  the  great  open  window  looking 
over  the  trees  toward  Tervueren,  its  little  red  roofs 
warm  in  the  sun.    She  was  in  tears. 

"My  poor  little  Tervueren!"  she  said.  .  .  . 

We  drove  into  town,  the  two  mothers  and  I,  the  mo- 
tor piled  with  bags ;  a  little  silk  American  flag  that  Eu- 
gene had  fastened  there  fluttered  from  the  car.  We 
passed  some  mounted  troops  in  the  Avenue  de  Ter- 
vueren. Mobilisation  was  well  under  way  then!  At 
the  Cinquantenaire  there  was  much  movement  and  bus- 
tle; the  authorities  were  already  requisitioning  motors 
and  parking  them  there.  We  made  a  detour  into  the 
Rue  Belliard  and  so  on  to  the  Legation. 

Among  the  things  I  had  hurriedly  swept  off*  my  writ- 
ing-table into  the  dispatch-box — it  is  an  insignificant  in- 
cident, but  there  are  those  who  will  understand  it — were 
two  little  books  that  I  do  not  like  ever  to  have  far  from 
the  reach  of  my  hand ;  they  respond  to  two  widely  dif- 
fering moods.  One  of  them  was  a  copy  of  "A  Shropshire 
Lad;"  the  other  a  small  volume,  bound  in  red  leather, 
of  Marcus  Aurelius.  I  opened  it  at  hazard,  and  my 
eyes  lighted  on  these  words: 

"Like  a  soldier  and  a  Roman,  having  taken  his  post." 

I  speak  of  this,  not  to  intimate  that  there  was  any- 
thing of  the  Roman  then  or  ever  in  me,  but  because 
these  words  in  that  moment  were  a  tonic  for  human 
weakness,  facing  a  task  of  which  the  only  thing  I  knew 
was  that  it  would  be  hard,  and  that  I  was  unprepared 
for  it.  I  kept  repeating  them  to  myself  as  we  drove 
through  the  noble  forest  that  wore  that  summer  after- 
noon the  mysterious  beauty  of  loved  things  beheld  for 

48 


C'EST  LA  GUERRE 

the  last  time — so  it  seemed  to  us  in  that  moment.  I 
looked  at  those  two  sweet  old  women  in  the  motor  with 
me;  they  had  lived  through  one  war  in  their  youth  and 
they  faced  this  latest  war  with  the  serenity  of  those  ad- 
vanced years  which  gave  them  the  exemption  of  a  de- 
tachment that  I  could  envy  them.  "Like  a  soldier  and 
a  Roman,  having  taken  his  post" — those  words  that 
came  down  to  me  out  of  the  old  Pagan  world,  were  in 
my  mind  when  I  saw  those  cavalrymen  trotting  west- 
ward under  the  trees  along  the  Avenue  de  Tervueren; 
they  were  associated,  too,  with  the  thought  of  Omer, 
who  had  refused  the  privilege  that  his  attachment  at  a 
neutral  Legation  might  have  gained  for  him.  Brave, 
gentle  Omer!  His  example  was  not  without  its  force 
and  effect.  .  .  . 

At  the  Legation  there  were  crowds  of  Americans  in 
panic.  What  to  do?  Well,  one  thing  at  a  time,  and 
doucement^  as  the  French  say.  And  try  to  comfort,  to 
reassure.  .  .  .  How  many  days,  how  many  nights,  it  was 
to  be  my  lot  to  do  that  when  my  own  heart  was  sinking ! 

It  was  late  before  the  others  came  in  from  the  coun- 
try, too  late  to  dine  at  the  Legation,  and  we  went  down 
to  the  Restaurant  de  la  Monnaie.  The  dim  familiar 
streets  seemed  strangely  deserted,  and  yet  almost  palpa- 
bly panic  and  fear  stalked  through  them.  There  were 
not  many  in  the  restaurant.  Near  us  at  a  little  table  sat 
a  man  with  his  bottle  of  Burgundy  beside  his  plate, 
scowling  at  his  newspaper,  with  dark  looks  of  preoccupa- 
tion and  concern ;  beside  him  sat  his  wife,  a  buxom  Bruce- 
elloise,  glancing  about,  waiting  until  her  lord  should 
finish  reading  the  dispatches — one  of  those  calm  scenes 
of  Brussels  domesticity,  somewhat  reassuring  by  its 
mere  normality.    I  remember  too  that  we  were  grate- 

49 


BELGIUM 

fully  surprised  when  our  money  was  taken  without 
question,  for  the  restaurants  were  refusing  all  money 
except  gold.  On  the  way  home  I  bought  a  copy  of  Le 
Petit  Bleu,  which  men  were  hoarsely  crying  in  the  Rue 
d'Arenberg  at  the  entrance  to  the  Galerie  du  Roi.  It 
had  an  article  against  Germany,  and  across  its  first 
page  was  a  great  headline  in  the  American  style: 
''Honte  a  la  BarbarieT 

Germany  had  declared  war  on  Russia,  Luxembourg 
had  been  invaded,  the  whole  world  was  mobilizing — 
France,  England,  and  Belgium;  declarations  of  war 
had  become  mere  formalities.  Jaures  had  been  assassi- 
nated at  Paris;  there  was  a  rumour  that  Caillaux  had 
been  killed;  the  world  was  tumbling  in  ruins  about  us. 


IX 


THE  SUMMONS 


It  was  on  the  following  day,  Sunday,  that  Herr  von 
Below  delivered  Germany's  ultimatum  to  Belgium;  he 
handed  it  to  M.  Davignon  at  seven  o'clock  in  the  eve- 
ning. Until  the  last  minute  there  had  been  the  repeated 
assurance  that  his  Government  would  respect  the  neu- 
trality of  Belgium,  and  to  the  Belgian  ministers  the 
summons  to  let  the  German  troops  pass  over  Belgian 
soil  to  attack  France  came  as  a  blow  that  was  not  dimin- 
ished in  its  force  by  the  fact  that  it  was  not  unexpected. 
It  seemed,  indeed,  but  a  detail  in  the  midst  of  those  tre- 
mendous events  that  were  tumbled  each  moment  into 
the  horrid  chaos  of  the  world,  to  be  telegraphed  to 
Washington,  with  others,  out  of  that  room  where  we 
laboured — that  room  which  was  so  hot,  so  still,  throbbing 
with  the  excitement  that  thrilled  the  nerves  of  the  world. 
It  was  Sunday,  but  with  no  Sabbath  calm;  the  only 
reminder,  indeed,  of  the  day  was  that  some  one  said  that 
prayers  for  peace  had  been  said  in  all  the  churches.  We 
began,  too,  to  hear  the  first  of  those  rumours  in  which 
war  is  so  prolific,  but  we  had  little  time  to  pay  attention 
to  them  because  all  our  time,  all  our  strength,  all  our  pa- 
tience was  absorbed  by  the  crowds  of  Americans  that 
filled  the  corridors  of  the  Legation  day  and  night.  They 
were  of  all  sorts  and  conditions,  and  they  came  pour- 
ing into  Brussels,  and  for  days  continued  to  pour  into 
Brussels,  from  all  over  the  continent.  Many  of  them 
were  in  fear,  many  in  a  panic,  a  few  almost  in  frenzy. 

51 


BELGIUM 

There  were  those  who  wished  to  go  home,  and  there 
were  those  who,  still  loath  to  relinquish  their  European 
tour — the  long-cherished  dream  that  had  been  so  rudely 
broken — did  not  wish  to  go  home.  Many  of  them  were 
without  money,  their  travellers'  checks  suddenly  worth- 
less ;  they  were  at  their  wit's  ends.  I  find  a  note  in  my 
journal  to  the  effect  that  the  women  were  often  calmer, 
braver,  more  reasonable  than  the  men.  It  was  a  strain 
listening  to  repeated  tales  of  hardship.  What  they  most 
needed  was  some  one  to  think  and,  above  all  to  decide 
for  them,  for  they  were  too  perturbed  to  think  or  to 
decide  for  themselves.  We  tried  to  get  as  many  as 
would  do  so  to  go  to  Ostend  and  thence  to  England — 
the  boats  were  still  running  across  the  Channel. 


X 


THE   INVASION 


On  a  peace  footing  the  staff  of  the  Legation  con- 
sisted of  a  secretary,  who  at  the  time  was  Mr.  Hugh  S. 
Gibson,  and  a  clerk,  or,  as  they  say  in  diplomatic  circles 
in  Europe,  a  chancelier,  Mr.  Alexander  P.  Cruger. 
That  Monday  morning,  however,  I  secured  the  services 
of  Maitre  Gaston  de  Leval,  a  distinguished  interna- 
tional lawyer  of  Brussels,  who  for  many  years  had  been 
legal  adviser  to  the  American  Ministers,  and  by  a  for- 
tunate chance.  Miss  Caroline  Larner,  of  the  State  De- 
partment at  Washington,  happened  just  then  to  be  in 
Brussels  on  her  holiday,  and  I  had  her  assigned  to  duty 
at  the  Legation. 

Crowded  as  they  were  with  their  imperative  exac- 
tions, the  hours  were  so  heavy  with  tragedy  that  they 
moved  slowly  by ;  in  each  of  them  one  lived  a  lifetime  or 
an  age. 

Behind  the  persiennes  of  the  ministries  over  in  the 
Rue  de  la  Loi  the  lights  had  burned  all  night,  and  after 
long  conferences  with  the  King  at  the  Palace  the  Min- 
isters, Baron  de  Broqueville  at  their  head,  had  drawn 
up  their  calm  and  stately  reply  to  Germany's  ultima- 
tum ;  it  was  delivered  promptly  to  Herr  von  Below.  But 
Germany  had  not  even  awaited  Belgium's  response  to 
her  ultimatum,  and  had  invaded  Belgian  soil  that  morn- 
ing at  Vise. 

I  was  routed  out  early  by  a  telephone  message  from 
the  French  Legation  asking  if  I  would  receive  Mon- 

53 


BELGIUM 

sieur  Klobukowski,  the  French  Minister.  I  was  down 
by  eight,  but  M.  Klobukowski  sent  M.  Fontarce,  the 
secretary  of  the  French  Legation,  in  his  stead.  Poor 
Fontarce!  He  was  very  haggard  and  pale,  with  heavy 
dark  circles  under  his  eyes;  he  had  not  been  to  bed  at 
all.  Indeed  there  had  been  no  sleep  over  at  the  French 
Legation;  it  was  crowded  day  and  night  by  excited 
members  of  the  French  colony,  as  ours  was  by  Ameri- 
cans, yet  how  much  more  crowded — there  were  30,000 
French  in  Brussels.  It  was,  somehow,  terrible  to  see  the 
agitation,  the  tragic  expression,  in  M.  Fontarce's  mobile 
face;  even  his  beard  seemed  to  have  grown  more  gray 
— and  his  brow  was  moist  with  perspiration,  matting 
down  the  locks  of  his  banged  hair. 

He  remains  for  me  somehow,  in  the  memory  I  have 
of  him  as  he  sat  there,  leaning  anxiously  forward  over 
the  edge  of  the  desk,  the  incarnation  of  the  demoraliza- 
tion and  intensity  of  those  terrible  times;  he  was  in 
agony,  as  was  his  country. 

He  nodded  sadly  in  affirmation,  even  before  I  could 
put  the  question  he  must  have  read  in  my  eyes — we  were, 
somehow,  still  hoping  selfishly  that  we  might  escape  the 
horror — and : 

^'Oui!'  he  said,  "c'est  la  guerre!" 

He  presented  his  chief's  compliments  and  excuses  and 
wished  to  know  if  I  would  take  over  the  French  Lega- 
tion. I  was  pleased,  and  told  him  so.  To  one  to  whom 
the  word  France  meant  what  it  did  to  me,  since  that 
youthful  phase,  common  I  suspect  to  most  boys,  when 
I  had  pored  over  every  book  I  could  find  that  relates 
to  Napoleon — and  then  the  French  language,  French 
literature,  French  art — it  was  like  an  accolade. 

When  he  had  gone  I  went  upstairs  and  told  my  wife 

54 


THE  INVASION 

that  we  were  in  for  it,  that  war  was  certain,  but  I  was 
too  busy  all  that  morning  to  notice  how  the  family  were 
affected — until  at  noon  my  wife  told  me  that  Aunt 
Sarah  had  decided  to  go  home;  she  was  sadly  shaken. 
Great  bustling  about  then,  rushing  up  and  downstairs, 
servants  flying  everywhere  and  clamouring  Americans 
in  the  corridors  below!  We  got  Aunt  Sarah  off  at  one 
o'clock,  bundling  her  and  her  bags  into  the  motor,  her 
steamer-trunks  on  top  and  Alice,  her  English  maid, 
weeping,  bidding  the  servants  good-by,  and  clambering 
into  the  motor  after  her  mistress,  her  black  gown  all 
unbuttoned  down  the  back,  revealing  her  white  under- 
garments. .  .  . 

Monsieur  Klobukowski  called  during  the  afternoon 
to  thank  me  for  having  agreed  to  take  over  his  Legation 
in  case  of  eventualities.  He  was  smiling  as  he  usually 
was,  and  showed  none  of  the  signs  of  the  strain  exhibited 
by  M.  Fontarce  that  morning. 


XI 


THE   KING   GOES   TO   PARLIAMENT 

The  Belgian  Government's  reply  to  the  German  ulti- 
matum— a  dignified  state  paper,  saying  that  Belgium  re- 
fused to  break  her  engagements  and  would  resist  Ger- 
man aggression — was  delivered  on  Monday  evening  at 
seven  o'clock.  At  ten  o'clock  the  King  addressed  a  tele- 
gram of  appeal  to  the  King  of  England.  Tuesday 
morning  at  six  o'clock  Herr  von  Below  delivered  his 
Government's  note  saying  that  Germany  could  take 
what  she  wanted  by  force.  Germany  had  already  de- 
clared war  on  France.  The  Belgian  Government  had 
been  notified  by  both  France  and  England  that  they 
would  come  to  her  defence  if  Belgium  soil  were  invaded ; 
the  formal  declarations  of  war  were  all  that  remained. 

And  at  ten  o'clock  that  morning  the  King  went  to 
Parliament. 

It  was  a  day  of  lovely  sunshine;  the  Belgian  flags  of 
black,  yellow,  and  red  floated  from  every  house,  and  the 
people  had  gathered  early  about  the  Park  and  the 
Palace  and  the  Parliament  buildings  to  see  the  King 
and  the  royal  family  go  by.  The  crowds  were  massed 
along  the  sidewalks,  on  the  terre-pleins  and  the  carre- 
fours;  people  hung  out  of  windows ;  even  the  roofs  were 
black.  The  garde-civique,  the  Chasseurs  and  the  in- 
fantry, the  Gendarmes  a  Cheval  and  companies  of  boy- 
scouts  formed  a  haie  from  the  Royal  Palace  along  the 
Rue  Royale  to  the  Parliament  Houses  at  the  other  end 
of  the  Park.    The  Queen  went  by  in  a  landau  with  the 

56 


THE  KING  GOES  TO  PARLIAMENT 

three  royal  children,  preceded  by  the  piqueurs  de  la 
Cour.  The  King,  booted  and  spurred,  mounted  on  his 
big  bay,  came  after  with  his  staff  and  the  Escadron 
Marie-Henriette  in  their  green  tunics  and  grey  busbies 
as  guard  of  honour.  The  crowds  were  wild  with  enthu- 
siasm. 

At  ten  o'clock  Gibson  and  I  drove  to  the  National 
Palace.  Sir  Francis  Villiers  rolled  up  in  his  motor  just 
as  we  arrived,  and  I  entered  with  him,  and  we  went 
slowly  up  the  red-carpeted  staircase  together  to  the  dip- 
lomatic gallery.  Sir  Francis  heavy  with  care.  The 
Salle  des  Seances  presented  a  scene  one  would  not  soon 
forget.  All  around  the  galleries  were  crowded,  the 
wives  of  the  Ministers  in  seats  opposite  us,  though  none 
of  the  ladies  of  the  diplomatic  corps  were  there.  Below 
were  the  senators  and  deputies,  all  in  formal  black — 
some  seated,  quietly  waiting,  others  in  excited  groups, 
discussing  the  ultimatum  of  last  night  and  the  invasion 
of  the  land.  The  Due  d'Ursel  was  there  in  the  uniform 
of  the  Guides.  The  Ministers,  after  their  sleepless 
nights,  were  on  their  benches — the  Baron  de  Broque- 
ville,  Messrs.  Davignon,  Carton  de  Wiart,  Hymans,  the 
new  liberal  Ministre  d'Etat,  and  Vandervelde,  the  new 
Socialist  Ministre  d'etat,  receiving  congratulations. 
The  hall  is  a  hemicycle  with  columns  all  around,  not  un- 
like the  chamber  of  the  Supreme  Court,  the  old  Senate 
at  Washington,  though  larger.  The  time  had  not  been 
sufficient  to  erect  the  red  velvet  throne;  instead,  a  red- 
and-gold  fauteuil  was  placed  for  the  King  on  the  presi- 
dent's dias ;  overhead  under  the  white  statue  of  Leopold 
I  was  the  escutcheon  of  Belgium  a  trophy  of  flags  of 
Belgium  and  the  Congo.  The  diplomatic  tribune  was 
hung  with  Belgian  flags  too.    Down  there  on  the  floor 

57 


BELGIUM 

before  the  president's  desk  a  great  green  table  was  set, 
and  at  it  were  seated  the  doyen  and  the  greffiers.  Gold 
f auteuils  were  set  for  the  Queen  and  the  royal  family. 

The  colleagues  were  gathering  in  these  now  changed 
conditions ;  the  last  time  we  were  assembled  was  at  Ste.- 
Gudule,  scarcely  a  fortnight  before,  at  the  Te  Deum  to 
celebrate  the  founding  of  the  Belgian  dynasty,  now  so 
rudely  shaken.  Herr  von  Below,  of  course,  was  not 
there,  nor  the  Count  Clary,  the  Austrian  Minister.  We 
waited  many  minutes ;  then  there  came  through  the  open 
windows  the  strains  of  a  military  band :  and  suddenly  a 
voice  cried: 

''La  Reiner 

The  deputies  sprang  to  their  feet,  and  against  the 
solid  black  of  their  frock-coats  there  fluttered  the  white 
of  the  handkerchiefs  they  waved  as  they  shouted : 

"Vive  la  Reine!    Vive  la  Reine!" 

And  there  was  her  charming  Majesty,  all  in  white, 
wearing  a  hat  with  great  white  plumes,  lovely  and  gra- 
cious, just  entered  the  chamber  below  to  our  left,  ac- 
knowledging this  loyal  salute  with  sweeping  courtesies 
right  and  left.  She  was  escorted  by  a  committee  of 
deputies  and  had  a  modest  suite — the  Countess  Hemri- 
court  de  Grunne,  la  Grande  Maitresse,  in  a  violet  gown, 
and  the  two  little  princes,  Leopold  the  Duke  of  Bra- 
bant, the  heir-apparent,  and  Charles  Count  of  Flan- 
ders, in  black  satin  suits  that  day  instead  of  the  costumes 
of  grey  they  usually  wore,  and  the  elfish  little  Princess 
Marie  Jose. 

The  Queen  took  the  golden  chair  placed  for  her  on 
the  left  of  the  tribune  and  the  princes  took  their  seats 
beside  her,  the  little  Count  of  Flanders  wriggling  up 

58 


THE  KING  GOES  TO  PARLIAMENT 

onto  his  chair  in  such  a  boyish  manner.  The  deputies 
resumed  their  seats,  and  the  chamber  for  an  instant  was 
still.  And  then  while  we  waited,  suddenly  there  was 
the  thunder  and  tumult  of  applause  outside,  a  rumble, 
a  roar,  and  then  a  huissier  shouted : 

The  word  was  caught  up  by  many  voices,  swelling  to 
a  hoarse  shout: 

''Le  Roir 

The  Queen,  the  Ministers,  the  deputies,  everybody 
rose;  we  in  the  diplomatic  gallery  never  once  sat  down. 
The  King  was  just  below  us,  entering  the  chamber  from 
the  right — the  side  opposite  that  from  which  the  Queen 
had  entered.  The  deputies  were  waving  their  hands — 
no  handkerchiefs  in  them  now — and  shouting  in  an 
united  voice,  deep,  rough,  masculine,  in  a  mighty  cres- 
cendo: 

''Five  le  Rot!    Vive  le  Roi!    Vive  le  Roir 

It  was  as  though  they  could  not  shout  it  loudly 
enough.  As  they  stood  there  some  in  tears,  catholic,  lib- 
eral, socialist,  those  distinctions  faded;  it  was  Belgium 
acclaiming  her  King.  .  .  . 

And  there  he  is,  in  the  fatigue  uniform  of  a  Lieuten- 
ant-General,  booted  and  spurred,  his  sabre  clanking  at 
his  side.  He  strides  along  firmly,  swiftly,  mounts  the 
rostrum,  takes  off  his  kepi,  flings  it  on  the  table  before 
him,  clicks  his  heels  together,  makes  a  smart  military 
bow,  swiftly  peels  the  white  glove  from  his  right  hand, 
slaps  the  glove  into  the  kepi  and,  without  waiting,  begins 
at  once,  in  his  firm  voice  and  his  beautiful  French,  to 
read  his  speech  from  the  notes  that  he  holds  in  his  white- 
gloved  hand. 

The  Queen,  the  little  princes,  the  deputies,  resume 

59 


BELGIUM 

their  seats;  the  applause  that  greets  His  Majesty  is 
quickly  hushed  by  the  universal  adjuration  of  silence: 

"Shi   Sh!" 

The  doyen's,  gavel  falls  on  the  green  table.  The  still- 
ness in  the  chamber  is  the  stillness  of  poignant,  nervous 
tension.  The  Ministers  in  the  front  benches  with  their 
portfolios  know  what  is  coming,  no  doubt ;  but  the  others 
strain  forward — the  old  Count  Woeste,  for  instance, 
with  his  hand  behind  his  deaf  ear — to  hear  the  fateful 
words. 

The  King  is  somewhat  short-sighted;  he  puts  on  his 
pince-nez,  holds  the  narrow  little  strips  of  paper  rather 
close  to  his  eyes,  and  begins  to  read : 

"Quand  je  vols  cette  assemhUe  fremissante  dans  la- 
quelle  il  n'y  a  plus  quun  seul  parti.  .  .  ." 

The  emotions  break,  cries  ring  forth;  then: 

"Sh!    Sh!"  again,  and  silence. 

And  the  King  goes  on: 

'^  .  .  .  celui  de  la  Patrie,  oil  tons  les  coeurs  hattent 
en  ce  moment  a  Vunisson,  mes  souvenirs  se  reportent  au 
Congres  de  1830,  et  je  vous  demande.  Messieurs:  Etes- 
vous  decides  inehranlahlement  a  maintenir  intact  le  pa- 
trimoine  sacre  de  nos  ancetres?" 

The  deputies  spring  to  their  feet,  raise  their  hands  as 
though  swearing  to  an  oath,  and  cry: 

''Oui!    Out!    Ouir 

The  King  continues ;  he  strikes  out  emphatic  gestures 
with  his  free  hand.  .  .  .  Below  him  the  little  Duke  of 
Brabant  looks  up  intently  into  his  father's  face,  never 
takes  his  eyes  off  him.  What  are  the  thoughts  in  that 
boy's  mind?  Will  that  scene  come  back  to  him  in  after 
years?    And  how?  when?  under  what  circumstances? 

The  silence  is  intense,  too  intense  to  be  borne,  and  now 

60 


THE  KING  GOES  TO  PARLIAMENT 

and  then  exclamations  break  forth,  to  be  smothered  im- 
mediately by  that  imperative  *'Sh!  Sh!"  The  King 
heeds  not  but  reads  on,  finishes  with  that  moving 
phrase : 

"J'ai  foi  dans  nos  destinies.  Un  pays  qui  se  defend 
sHmpose  au  respect  de  tous;  ce  pays  ne  perit  pas.  Dieu 
sera  avec  nous  dans  cette  cau^e  juste!  Vive  la  Belgique 
inde pendant  e!" 

The  mad,  passionate  applause  breaks,  all  unre- 
strained now;  handkerchiefs  are  waved,  then  pressed  to 
weeping  eyes.  .  .  .  The  King  seizes  his  kepi,  the  Queen 
and  the  little  princes  rise,  and  the  King  stalks  out,  sword 
clanking;  away  on  stern  business  now! 

And  I  find  myself  leaning  over  the  balcony  rail,  a 
catch  in  my  throat,  my  eyes  moist. 

Then  that  stillness  again  in  the  chamber,  intense,  vi- 
brant with  emotion,  the  thrill  of  patriotism,  the  sense  of 
tragedy  the  consciousness  of  assisting  at  an  historic 
scene  the  deputies  remain  standing,  and  the  Queen 
makes  her  sweeping  courtesies  again,  right  and  left, 
then,  with  the  royal  children  and  her  suite,  retires. 

Then  there  is  an  universal  inhalation  in  the  chamber, 
a  long  breath.  Contrary  to  their  custom,  when  the  King 
reads  a  speech  from  the  throne,  the  Senate  and  Chamber 
of  Deputies  do  not  separate  but  remain  in  joint  session. 
Baron  de  Broqueville,  the  Minister  of  War  and  Pre- 
mier, is  opening  his  portfolio,  taking  out  the  notes  of  his 
speech,  standing  up. 

"A  la  tribune!  A  la  tribune!"  the  senators  and  depu- 
ties cry. 

And  he  marches  down,  climbs  up  into  the  tribune, 
stands  there,  looks  about  him,  bows.  A  handsome  man, 
M.  de  Broqueville,  a  striking  figure  there  in  the  tribune 

61 


BELGIUM 

in  that  moment — ^tall,  svelte,  distinguished,  in  black- 
frock  coat,  slightly  waving  hair,  smart  moustache,  the 
ribbon  of  the  Order  of  Leopold  in  his  boutonniere.  He 
speaks  dramatically,  reading  the  German  ultimatum,  the 
Belgian  reply;  asks  almost  peremptorily  for  a  vote  of 
supplies;  and,  at  the  end,  smiting  the  tribune,  his  seal- 
ring  striking  sharply  on  the  hard  wood,  he  concludes 
with: 

"La  parole  est  atuv  armesr 

The  session  is  over,  though  the  senators  and  deputies 
are  to  hold  formal  sessions  to  ratify  the  Government's 
acts  and  to  vote  supplies.  But  the  dramatic  tableau  is 
done  and  we  turn  to  speak  to  one  another — and  then 
drift  out  of  the  gallery.  And  as  we  go  the  Prince  Kou- 
dachefF  comes  up  to  me,  takes  me  aside,  and  asks  me  to 
take  over  his  Legation  in  case  he  had  to  go  away.  I 
tell  him  that  I  shall  be  honoured  to  do  so,  of  course.  .  .  . 

On  our  way  out  the  word  went  about  that  the  Papal 
Nuncio  wished  us  to  remain  and  meet  him  a  moment  in 
an  anteroom —  Monseigneur  Tacci,  the  Nuncio,  as  the 
only  Ambassador  at  the  Belgian  Court,  was  the  doyen 
of  the  corps,  though  the  Count  Clary,  who  had  been  at 
Brussels  longer  than  any  of  us,  usually  acted  in  that 
capacity.  We  gathered  about  him,  then,  in  one  of  the 
ante-chambers,  and  he  stood  there  in  the  midst  of  us 
in  his  violet  robes,  very  distinguished  with  his  dark  aris- 
tocratic features,  as  finely  cut  as  a  cameo,  and  his  deli- 
cate hands  that  were  so  expressive,  speaking  to  us  in  his 
soft  Italian  voice  that  lent  its  accent  to  his  French.  He 
hinted  at  the  possibility  of  the  Court  and  Government 
going  to  Antwerp,  and  said  that  in  such  an  eventuality 
we  should  have  to  accompany  them. 

62 


THE  KING  GOES  TO  PARLIAMENT 

Then  the  sunshine  once  more,  and  the  motors  rolling 
up  into  the  paved  court  before  the  Parliament  buildings, 
and  the  colleagues  lifting  their  tall  hats  to  each  other 
and  then  rolling  away  in  the  crowded,  agitated,  brilliant 
streets. 

When  I  got  back  to  the  Legation  I  found  a  telegram 
from  Washington  authorizing  me  to  take  over  the 
French  interests,  providing  such  action  would  not  pre- 
vent my  taking  over  any  other  legations,  the  chiefs  of 
which  might  ask  me  to  do  so.  And  on  the  heels  of  this 
word  came  from  Herr  von  Below  that  he  was  leaving  in 
the  afternoon  and  would  ask  me  to  accept  the  repre- 
sentation of  German  interests. 

At  two  o'clock,  then,  Mr.  von  Strum,  the  secretary  of 
the  German  Legation,  came,  very  much  excited,  and 
formally  delivered  Herr  von  Below's  request. 

"But  I've  agreed  to  act  for  the  French  interests,"  I 
said. 

Herr  von  Strum  looked  at  me  an  instant,  as  though  he 
could  not  believe  me.  I  asked  him  to  tell  Herr  von 
Below  of  that  fact,  supposing  that  in  such  a  case  Herr 
von  Below  would  not  wish  me  to  act  for  German  inter- 
ests. Herr  von  Strum  was  nervous,  agitated,  and  un- 
strung; I  suppose  that  he,  too,  had  been  without  sleep 
for  nights  on  end.  Tears  were  continually  welling  into 
his  eyes,  and  suddenly  he  covered  his  face  with  his  hands, 
leaned  forward,  his  elbows  on  his  knees,  an  attitude  of 
despair.    Presently  he  looked  up. 

"Oh,  these  poor,  stupid  Belgians!"  he  said.  "Why 
don't  they  get  out  of  the  way!  Why  don't  they  get  out 
of  the  way!  I  know  what  it  will  be.  I  know  the  Ger- 
man army.  It  will  be  like  laying  a  baby  on  the  track 
before  a  locomotive  1" 

63 


BELGIUM 

He  bent  over,  stretching  his  hands  towards  the  floor 
as  though  to  illustrate  the  cruel  deed. 

"I  know  the  German  army,"  he  repeated.  "It  will 
go  across  Belgium  like  a  steam-roller;  like  a  steam- 
roller!" 

He  liked  the  phrase,  which  he  must  have  picked  up  in 
America — he  had  an  American  wife — and  kept  on  re- 
peating it. 

He  went  away  and  late  in  the  afternoon  came  back, 
saying  that  Herr  von  Below  asked  me  as  a  special  favour 
to  him  to  take  over  his  Legation,  and  I  consented.  I 
sent  word  that  I  should  go  to  the  German  Legation  at 
five  o'clock,  and  asked  Maitre  de  Leval  meanwhile  to 
draw  very  carefully  a  proces-verbal.  The  German  Le- 
gation is  across  the  street  from  the  American,  in  the 
Rue  Belliard,  and  at  the  hour  appointed  we  went  over 
there — Gibson,  de  Leval  and  I. 

We  found  Herr  von  Below  alone  in  his  chancery, 
stretched  out  in  a  low  chair,  a  cup  of  tea  on  the  little 
tabouret  at  his  side.  He  was  smoking  a  cigarette — ^his 
short  mission  at  Brussels  ended.  When  I  had  seen  him 
last,  the  night  of  his  formal  dinner,  he  had  been  so  hap- 
pily looking  forward  to  a  peaceful,  idle  summer.  At 
sight  of  me  he  flung  up  his  hands,  shrugged  his  shoulders 
and  made  a  little  moue,  as  though  he  too  remembered,  as 
though  words  were  unnecessary — or  inadequate.  Mr. 
von  Below  had  had  a  proces-verbal  already  prepared, 
but  I  preferred  mine,  and  we  signed  and  sealed  that. 
Then  in  that  room  of  gloomy  oak,  the  two  white-haired 
German  functionaries — the  old  Grabowsky,  conseiller 
aulique,  and  another,  bureaucratic  and  formal,  bearing 
a  tall  white  candle  and  a  long  stick  of  red  sealing-wax, 
proceeded  slowly  and  solemnly  around  the  room,  seal- 
er 


THE  KING  GOES  TO  PARLIAMENT 

ing  the  oaken  cupboards  where  the  archives  were.  We 
stood  about  in  silence  while  this  was  being  done.  Then 
the  strained  farewells;  Herr  von  Below  was  leaving  at 
seven  o'clock  for  Berlin,  via  Holland. 

Half  an  hour  later  Maitre  de  Leval  and  I  drove  over 
to  the  Foreign  Office.  In  the  Rue  de  la  Loi  we  met  a  line 
of  automobiles,  half  a  dozen  of  them,  spinning  at  high 
speed  toward  the  Cinquantdnaire.  They  were  filled  with 
officers,  in  the  bonnets  de  police  that  the  Belgian  soldiers 
wear  in  memory  of  the  Revolution  of  1830,  and  they 
gave  a  gala  air  to  the  scene. 

^'Le  Roil"  said  de  Leval. 

It  was  he  and  his  staff,  going  to  the  front. 


XII 


THE   NAIVETES    OF    HISTORY 


At  the  Foreign  Office  I  talked  with  Count  Leo  d'Ur- 
sel  a  few  moments,  and  as  we  came  out  and  were  cross- 
ing the  courtyard,  old  Count  van  der  Straaten-Ponthos, 
in  shirt-sleeves,  thrust  his  head  out  the  window  of  the 
little  bureau  and  asked  me  to  come  in.  I  went,  and  he 
shut  the  door,  leaving  Maitre  de  Leval  outside.  Count 
van  der  Straaten-Ponthos  had  heard  that  I  had  taken 
over  the  German  Legation,  and  asked  me  about  the 
terms;  while  de  Leval,  outside,  was  talking  with  M. 
van  den  Heuvel,  one  of  the  Belgian  Ministers  of  State 
and  former  Minister  of  Justice.  M.  van  den  Heuvel 
had  asked  him: 

"^'Eh  bien  .  .  .  et  vos  amis  les  Anglais?'* 
"Mais,  ne  marchent-ils  pas  avec  nous?'*  said  de  Leval. 
"Nous  sommes  sans  nouvelles." 

"La  protection  dc  I'Angleterre  a  tou jours  ete  man 
evangile,  et  j'y  croirai  tou jours." 
Van  den  Heuvel  went  away  saying: 
"Esperons  que  voire  evangile  sera  le  vrai.  .  .  ." 
On  our  way  back  to  the  Legation  we  stopped  at  the 
British  Legation.     Sir  Francis  was  at  his  big  desk, 
rather  depressed,  I  thought. 

*'I  have  no  news,"  he  said;  "I  know  nothing." 
Sir  Francis  asked  me  if  I  would  take  over  his  Lega- 
tion, and  I  told  him  that  I  should  consider  it  an  honour. 

66 


THE  NAIVETES  OF  HISTORY 

It  was  the  fourth  invitation  of  the  sort  that  I  had 
received. 

I  went  home,  but  dinner  was  no  sooner  over  than  I 
had  to  turn  out  again.  The  telegraph  office  had  re- 
fused our  cipher  dispatches.  I  drove  over  to  the  For- 
eign Office,  and  on  the  sidewalk,  coming  out,  were  M. 
Blancas,  my  Argentine,  and  M.  Barros  Moreira,  my 
Brazilian  colleague. 

^'Vos  depeches  ont  ete  ref usees?"  they  asked  in  unison. 

"Oui  .  .  .  et  les  votres?" 

''Out.  .  .  .  Oui '' 

We  went  together  and  made  protests,  but  poor  Da- 
vignon  was  helpless.  He  spread  his  hands  wide, 
shrugged  his  shoulders. 

''Ce  riest  pas  de  ma  faute.  Je  le  regrette  beaucoup 
mais  .  .  .  c'est  la  guerre  .  .  .  vou^  savez" 

"C'est  la  guerre!"  How  often  was  I  to  hear  that 
phrase  as  an  excuse  for  everything  that  went  wrong 
in  life! 

I  went  over  to  the  French  Legation,  ablaze  with  light 
and  all  excitement.  Prince  Koudacheff  was  there  in 
dinner-jacket,  pacing  the  floor,  his  grey  pompadour 
bristling,  his  sharp  eyes  sparkling  behind  his  steel 
rimmed,  insecure  pince-nez.  He  was  scowling  and  wink- 
ing nervously,  and  smoking  Russian  cigarettes  inces- 
santly. And  intellectually  he  was  very  much  alive,  full 
of  his  Russian  humour.  I  asked  him  if  he  too  had  had 
trouble  with  his  ciphers  and  I  was  relieved  when  he  said 
"Yes." 

M.  Klobukowski  was  called  back  to  his  desk  by  the 
jingle  of  the  telephone,  and  we  were  still.  ^I.  Klobu- 
kowski began  talking  about  a  battle — called  for  a  block 
of  paper  and  pencil,  took  notes — and  we  listened.    He 

67 


BELGIUM 

finished  and  told  us  that  the  French  had  won  a  victory 
but  where,  I  did  not  know,  nor  do  I  know  now.  It  was 
one  of  those  httle  incidents  so  big  at  the  moment,  so  in- 
significant afterwards — the  little  naivetes  of  history. 
Prince  Koudacheif  talked  about  my  taking  over  all 
the  Legations,    He  was  very  droll. 

"Why,"  he  said,  "you'll  be  the  greatest  Minister  in 
the  world;  you'll  be  representing  America  and  all  Eu- 
rope!" 

Just  then  Count  Leo  d'Ursel,  of  the  Foreign  Office, 
happened  in,  and  Koudacheff,  Klobukowski,  and  I  at- 
tacked him  about  the  cipher  messages.  He  promised 
that  there  should  be  no  more  trouble  on  that  score. 

And  then  I  strolled  home  at  midnight — after  what 
a  day ! — in  the  wonderful  moonlight.  .  .  . 

I  stood  for  a  moment,  before  going  to  bed,  at  the  win- 
dow that  overlooks  the  courtyard  and  my  neighbour's 
formal  garden,  peaceful,  with  deep  purple  shadows, 
and  the  moonlight.  Is  that  moon  also  looking  down  on 
the  faces  of  wounded  soldiers? 

On  such  a  night  Troilus  climbed  the  Trojan  walls 
And  looked  away  toward  the  Grecian  tents. 

How  many  ages  that  moon  had  looked  down  on  tents 
and  soldiers!  And  if,  as  Prince  Koudacheff  could  jok- 
ingly say,  I  really  represented  America  and  all  Europe, 
how  soon  and  how  simply  I  should  see  to  it  that  it  looked 
down  on  tents  and  soldiers  and  wars  no  more,  as  it  was 
looking  down  that  night  on  the  upturned  faces  of  the 
wounded  in  that  battle  oiF  there  of  which  Klobukowski 
had  been  hearing  over  the  telephone ! 


XIII 

HORUM  OMNIUM   FORTISSIMI  SUNT  BELG^ 

Scarcely  waiting  for  the  reply  to  the  ultimatum,  Ger- 
man troops  had  invaded  Belgium  on  Tuesday  morning 
at  eleven  o'clock.^    They  crossed  the  frontier  near  Dol- 

^  The  following  was  the  first  proclamation  posted  by  the  German 
troops.    It  was  posted  at  Spa. 

Au  Peuple  beige, 

C'est  a  men  grand  regret  que  les  troupes  allemandes  se  voient 
forcees  de  franchir  la  frontiere  de  la  Belgique.  Elles  agissent  sous 
la  contrainte  d'une  necessite  inevitable,  la  neutralite  de  la  Belgique 
ayant  ete  deja  violee  par  des  officiers  fran^ais  qui,  sous  un  deguise- 
ment,  ont  traverse  le  territoire  beige  en  automobile  pour  penetrer  en 
Allemagne. 

Beiges !  C'est  notre  plus  grand  desir  qu'il  y  ait  encore  moyen 
d'eviter  un  combat  entre  deux  peuples  qui  etaient  amis  jusqu'a 
present,  jadis  meme  allies.  Souvenez-vous  du  glorieux  jour  de 
Waterloo  ou  c'etaient  les  armes  allemandes  qui  ont  contribue  a 
fonder  et  etablir  I'independence  de  votre  patrie. 

Mais  il  nous  faut  le  chemin  libre.  Des  destructions  de  ponts,  »de 
tunnels,  de  voies  ferrees  devront  etre  regardees  comme  des  actions 
hostiles. 

Beiges,  vous  avez  a  choisir. 

J'espere  done  que  I'armee  allemande  ne  sera  pas  contrainte  de 
vous  combattre.  Un  chemin  libre  pour  attaquer  celui  qui  voulait 
nous  attaquer,  c'est  tout  ce  que  nous  desirons.  Je  donne  des  garan- 
ties  formelles  a  la  population  beige  qu'elle  n'aura  rien  a  souffrir  des 
horreurs  de  la  guerre,  que  nous  paierons  en  or  monnaye  les  vivres 
qu'il  faudra  prendre  du  pays,  que  nos  soldats  se  montreront  les 
meilleurs  amis  d'un  peuple  pour  lequel  nous  eprouvons  la  plus  haute 
estime,  la  plus  grande  sympathie. 

69 


BELGIUM 

hain,  and  in  the  afternoon,  about  four  o'clock  they  had 
arrived  in  the  region  of  the  Fleron,  one  of  the  forts  that 
encircle  Liege.  Wednesday  morning  we  heard  that  the 
guns  of  the  forts  at  Liege  were  already  booming.  The 
army  was  already  concentrated  there,  and  the  Liege 
deputies  had  gone  home  to  aid  in  the  defense  of  the  old 
city,  whose  heroic  traditions  the  King,  in  a  stirring  proc- 
lamation to  his  troops,  could  recall  that  day  in  remind- 
ing them  of  the  noble  resistance  of  the  six  hundred 
Franchimonts,  as  he  could  inspire  the  Flemish  by  invok- 
ing the  memory  of  the  battle  of  the  Golden  Spurs.  It 
was  a  noble  and  an  eloquent  appeal  in  which  the  King 
had  the  felicity  to  cite  the  phrase  of  Caesar's,  familiar  to 

C'est  de  votre  sagesse  et  d'un  patriotisme  bien  compris  qu'il 
depend  d'eviter  a  votre  pays  les  horreurs  de  la  guerre. 

Le  General  Commandant  en  Chef  de  l'Armee  de  la  Meuse. 

AUX  HABITANTS  DE  LA  BELGIQUE: 

Les  evenements  des  derniers  jours  ont  prouve  que  les  habitants 
de  la  Belgique  ne  se  rendent  pas  assez  compte  des  tristes  eonse- 
quer<;es  que  les  violations  des  lois  de  la  guerre  doivent  entrainer 
pour  eux-memes  et  pour  tout  le  pays.  Je  leur  recommande  de  lire 
attentivement  la  publication  suivante: 

1.  Seront  punis  de  mart  tous  les  habitants  qui  tirent  sur  nos 
soldats  sans  appartenir  a  I'armee  organisee  et  entreprennent  de  nuire 
a  nos  troupes  ou  d'aider  les  troupes  beiges  ou  alliees  et  qui  se  rendent 
coupables  d'un  acte  queleonque  apte  a  mettre  en  peril  la  vie  ou  la 
sante  de  nos  soldats,  enfin  partieulierement  qui  commettent  des  actes 
d'espionnage. 

Des  perquisitions  seront  ordonnees  dans  les  villages. 

Qui  sera  attrape  ayant  des  armes  dans  sa  maison  subira  une 
severe  punition,  dans  les  cas  graves  la  punition  de  mort. 

Les  villages  ou  des  actes  d'hostilite  seront  commis  par  les  habi- 
tants centre  nos  troupes  seront  hrules. 

70 


FORTISSIMI  SUNT  BELG^ 

every  schoolboy  the  world  over :    "Horum  omnium  for- 
tissimi  sunt  Belgce."  ^ 

The  moving  words  of  the  young  King,  who  on  that 
Wednesday  morning  had  established  his  headquarters 

2.  Seront  tenus  responsables  de  toutes  les  destructions  de  routes, 
chemins  de  fer,  ponts,  etc.,  les  villages  dans  la  proximite  des  points 
de  destruction. 

Les  mesures  les  plus  rigoureuses  seront  prises  pour  garantir  la 
prompte  reparation  et  pour  eviter  de  semblables  mefaits. 

3.  Chaque  personne  qui  s'approchera  d'une  place  d'atterrisse- 
ment  d'aeroplanes  ou  de  ballons  jusqu'a  200  metres  sera 

fusillee  sur  place 

Pour  la  sauvegarde  des  interets  superieurs  dont  je  suis  charge, 
je  suis  fermement  resolu  d'employer  chaque  moyen  possible  pour 
forcer  le  respect  des  lois  de  la  guerre  et  pour  proteger  nos  troupes 
centre  les  attaques  d'une  population  hostile. 

Les  punitions  annoncees  ci-dessus  seront  executees  severement  et 
sans  grace. 

La  totalite  sera  tenue  responsable. 

Les  otages  seront  pris  largement. 

Les  plus  graves  contributions  de  guerre  seront  infligees. 

Par  contre,  si  les  lois  de  la  guerre  seront  respectees  et  si  tout 
acte  d'hostilite  sera  evite,  je  garantis  aux  habitants  de  la  Belgique 
la  protection  absolue  de  leur  personne  et  de  leur  propriete. 

Le  Commandant  en  Chef  de  l'Armee. 

(Cette  affiche  concerne  specialement  les  villages.) 

^  This  is  the  King's  proclamation : 

A  l'armee  de  la  nation 

Soldats : — 

Sans  la  moindre  provocation  de  notre  part,  un  voisin  orgueilleux 
de  sa  force  a  dechire  les  traites  qui  portent  sa  signature,  et  viole 
le  territoire  de  nos  peres. 

Parce  que  nous  avons  ete  dignes  de  nous-memes,  parce  que  nous 
avons  refuse  de  forfaire  a  I'honneur,  il  nous  a  attaques.  Mais  le 
monde  entier  est  emerveille  de  notre  attitude  loyale.  Que  son  respect 
et  son  estime  vou^  reconfortent  en  ces  moments  supremes ! 

71 


BELGIUM 

eastward  at  Louvain,  near  the  field  where  he  was  to 
prove  himself  so  much  a  man,  had  stirred  Brussels.  The 
city,  in  the  brilliant  sun  of  that  Wednesday,  thrilled 
with  the  emotions  of  patriotic  fervour;  flags  leaped  to 
roofs  and  balconies  all  over  town  and  lolled  luxuriously 
on  the  warm  air.  There  was  an  exhilaration  in  the  at- 
mosphere; every  one  was  excited.  Men  met  and  shook 
hands  ecstatically;  tears  came  suddenly  to  the  eyes; 
voices  trembled.  Every  man  that  one  met  had  a  new 
rumour — the  French  Army  had  entered  Belgium  or  the 
English  were  debarking  at  Ostend ;  there  was  exaltation 
and  high  hope  in  everj'^  heart. 

All  day  the  Legation  was  crowded  with  frightened 
Americans,  who  continued  to  pour  into  Brussels  and  re- 
mained there  hesitant,  undecided,  bewildered,  loath  to 
brave  the  Channel-Crossing  to  England,  hoping  for 
some  miracle  that  would  arrest  the  war  or  spare  them  its 
discomforts. 

"I  suppose  I  am  to  come  right  here  with  my  fam- 
ily in  case  of  trouble?"  said  a  great  lusty  fellow,  speak- 

Voyant  son  independence  menacee,  la  Nation  a  fremi^  et  ses  en- 
fants  ont  bondi  a  la  frontiere.  Vaillants  soldats  d'une  cause  sacree, 
j  'ai  confiance  en  votre  bravoure  tenace,  et  j  e  vous  salue  au  nom  de  la 
Belgique.  Vos  concitoyens  sont  fiers  de  vous.  Vous  triompherez, 
car  vous  etes  la  force  mise  au  service  du  droit. 

Cesar  a  dit  de  vos  ancetres:  "De  tous  les  peuples  de  la  Gaule, 
les  Beiges  sont  les  plus  braves." 

Gloire  a  vous,  armee  du  peuple  beige.  Souvenez-vous  devant 
I'ennemi  que  vous  corabattez  pour  la  liberte  et  pour  vos  foyers 
menaces.  Souvenez-vous,  Flamands,  de  la  bataille  des  Eperons 
d'Or,  et  vous,  Wallons,  qui  etes  en  ce  moment  a  I'honneur,  des  600 
Franchimontois. 

Soldats!  je  pars  de  Bruxelles  pour  me  mettre  a  votre  tete. 

Fait  au  Palais  de  Bruxelles  ce  5  aout  1914.  Albert. 

72 


FORTISSIMI  SUNT  BELG^ 

ing  in  his  strong  German  accent,  who  came  one  morning 
with  a  wife  and  five  children  and,  planting  himself  there 
in  the  corridor  that  was  crowded  with  Americans  and 
Germans,  plucked  at  me  insistently  as  I  went  by.  Per- 
haps I  did  not  instantly  respond  with  the  spontaneous 
gesture  of  hospitality  that  one,  especially  if  one  is  an 
American  diplomatist,  would  like  to  have  instantly 
ready  in  all  his  relations  with  his  friends  and  fellow-citi- 
zens, for  the  man  grew  impatient  and  shouted: 
"I  demand  protection  as  an  American  citizen!" 
He  used  the  word  protection  with  that  curious  baf- 
fling superstition  which  characterizes  the  type  of  mind 
that  confuses  words  with  acts,  that  considers  problems 
solved  when  the  word  that  defines  them  has  been  dis- 
covered and  pronounced.  .  .  . 

We  could  laugh  at  him,  he  was  so  badly  scared;  but 
I  could  have  wept  at  the  plight  of  a  newly-married  pair 
— a  youth  and  his  bride,  who  sat  near,  patiently  await- 
ing their  turn.  They  had  been  school  teachers  in  Iowa. 
They  were  on  their  bridal  trip  and  for  the  first  time  in 
their  lives  in  Europe,  doubtless  for  the  first  time  in  their 
lives  away  from  home.  All  that  the  bridegroom  had 
was  a  ticket  which,  as  he  unrolled  it,  revealed — yard  on 
yard,  in  almost  interminable  convolutions,  a  series  of 
coupons;  coupons  for  everything,  steamships,  railways, 
trams,  omnibuses,  hotels;  in  short,  one  of  those  tourist 
tickets  that  provide  for  every  need  of  a  determined  voy- 
age, themselves  the  itinerary  and  the  means  of  follow- 
ing it.  And  now,  in  the  universal  cataclysm,  the  young 
couple  found  their  coupons  suddenly  worthless;  no  one 
would  accept  them — not  a  steamship,  railway,  bus  or 
hotel,  and  the  bridegroom  had  no  money;  all  that  he 
and  his  wife  had  was  invested  in  that  preternaturally 

73 


BELGIUM 

elongated  ticket,  which  was  to  have  supphed  every  pos- 
sible human  want  and  to  have  spared  them  every  care 
and  annoyance  so  long  as  they  did  not  depart  from  the 
narrow,  defined  groove  of  travel  it  marked  out  for  them. 
Held  up  there  before  me  in  the  hand  of  the  groom,  and 
allowed  to  trail  out  its  preposterous  length  in  despair- 
ing impotence  on  the  floor,  it  stood  to  me  as  the  pathetic 
symbol  of  what  long  months  of  eager  planning  and  con- 
sultation of  guide-books,  and  histories,  of  what  conver- 
sations with  obliging  and  persuasive  agents,  of  what 
painful  economy,  of  what  heroic  and  stoical  self-denial, 
of  what  hopes  and  dreams!  I  can  see  the  bridegroom 
and  the  bride  sitting  there,  the  girl  looking  into  the 
young  husband's  face  with  such  utter  confidence ;  so  far 
from  that  mid-western  home,  with  its  peace,  its  calm,  its 
naivete.  The  whole  scene  was  vividly  present — the  lit- 
tle provincial  town,  the  High  School,  the  Sunday 
School,  the  Chautauqua,  the  faint  apprehension  of  the 
thing  called  culture:  my  heart  went  out  to  them.  It 
was  another  of  "Life's  Little  Ironies"  for  Mr.  Thomas 
Hardy  or  a  story  for  Maupassant,  though  Maupassant 
with  four  thousand  naked  words  would  have  treated  it 
with  his  cynical  mockery,  his  hard,  pitiless  wit.  Simt 
lachrimce  rerum!  It  was  of  a  pathos  beyond  all  tears, 
as  is  so  much  of  life,  alas ! 

There  were  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men  in  the 
throng  that  shifted  in  and  out  of  the  Legation.  There 
were  jockeys  and  clergymen,  and  actors  and  musicians, 
and  physicians  and  tourists  of  all  kinds.  One  man,  a 
millionaire,  whom  I  had  known  in  Chicago,  had  once 
cornered  the  wheat  market  of  the  world ;  he  stood  in  the 
ofiice  while  the  patient  Cruger  was  making  out  pass- 
ports, as  calm  and  game  as  when  he  stood  in  the  wheat- 

74 


FORTISSIMI  SUNT  BELG^ 

pit,  and  he  had  not  a  cent  in  his  pocket.  He  had  a  berth 
in  the  steerage  on  an  outward-bound  ship,  he  who  had 
come  over  in  a  cabine  de  luxe.  There  was,  indeed,  in  most 
of  them  something  quite  admirable,  something  of  which 
one  could  be  proud  as  pertaining  to  one's  countrymen, 
even  among  the  provincial  and  unsophisticated,  for  they 
had  character,  they  were  the  bone  and  sinew  of  our  na- 
tion. There  was  another  type,  more  worldly-wise,  with 
manner  and  sophistication;  they  had  lived  in  Europe 
long  years,  and  had  not  been  reminded  of  their  nation- 
ality until  the  income-tax  summoned  them;  now  they 
came  in  eager  haste  for  passports  to  establish  an  iden- 
tity that  they  had  not  always,  perhaps,  cared  to  own. 

Among  the  Americans  was  a  young  doctor  from  Chi- 
cago, whom  the  war  had  overtaken  in  Germany,  where 
he  had  been  studying.  He  had  come  through  from 
Verviers  to  Liege  that  night  on  a  German  military  train 
which  was  labeled  "Schnellzug  nach  Paris."  The  train, 
however,  had  been  stopped,  and  at  the  frontier  the  pas- 
sengers had  got  out  and  walked.  Some  of  the  women  had 
ridden  part  way  in  a  peasant's  cart;  trees  felled  across 
the  road  and  barbed-wire  entanglements  had  stopped 
their  progress  and  they  struggled  along  on  foot,  lugging 
their  dressing-cases.  The  night  was  clear  and  warm,  and 
they  had  seen  the  German  cavalry  at  rest  along  the  road- 
side; the  horses  were  picketed  and  the  troopers  were  ly- 
ing on  the  ground  smoking.  One  of  the  soldiers  waved 
his  hand  at  the  party  as  it  struggled  along.  They  got  to 
Liege,  and  thence  came  through  to  Brussels  by  train. 

The  young  man  was  not  only  an  American,  but  a 
German- American,  and  for  that  reason  some  of  those 
at  the  Legation  insisted  that  he  was  a  German  spy. 
Thus  early  even  we  were  affected  by  that  peculiar  sug- 

75 


BELGIUM 

gestion  which  produced  its  phenomenon  evejywhere 
during  those  early  days  of  the  war.  Perhaps  it  was  not 
so  strange:  the  Legation  halls  were  already  crowded 
with  Germans;  there  were  thousands  of  them  in  Brus- 
sels, and  many  of  them  were  spies,  of  course.  The  sys- 
tem maintained  in  Belgium  had  been  extensive — as  ex- 
tensive as  the  Russian  third  section.  But  they  were 
there,  and  German,  and,  whether  spies  or  not,  badly 
frightened. 

''Voila  un  espion/^  some  one  would  cry,  and  the  hu- 
man pack  would  instantly  give  chase.  No  one,  how- 
ever, was  hurt.  The  Brussels  police  were  tactful,  kindly, 
and  efficient.  But  suspicions  were  ripe  even  in  the  mild- 
est breasts.  There  was,  as  it  happened,  that  very  morn- 
ing, a  Belgian  priest  who  came  to  see  me,  an  abbot  from 
the  country.  He  came  accompanied  by  another  priest, 
old,  grey  and  withered,  who,  as  I  had  the  abbot  shown 
in,  was  left  sitting  rather  disconsolately  in  the  hall.  I 
spoke  of  this  and  asked  the  abbot  if  he  did  not  wish  his 
colleague  to  come  in,  but  the  abbot,  leaning  toward  me, 
confidentially  said,  "No;  I  think  he  is  a  German  spy." 

The  abbot  had  come  to  tell  me  that  he  had  given 
refuge  to  four  hundred  Germans  in  his  abbey  and  he 
wished  me  to  take  steps  to  have  them  repatriated. 

"I  don't  like  Germans,"  he  said,  "but,"  and  he  re- 
lented, "I  feel  sorry  for  these  poor  folk." 

I  entrusted  the  four  hundred  refugees  to  Gibson,  who 
went  at  once  to  arrange  for  trains  to  take  them  out  to 
Holland,  whence  they  might  regain  the  Fatherland.  The 
Americans,  who  had  so  much  farther  to  go  to  regain 
their  motherland,  had  been  increasing  in  such  numbers 
that  some  organization  beyond  that  which  the  inade- 
quate resources  of  the  Legation  could  provide  was  nec- 

76 


FORTISSIMI  SUNT  BELG^ 

essary,  and  it  was  then  that  I  had  recourse  to  a  rather 
remarkable  American  who  happened  to  be  resident  in 
Brussels,  an  engineer,  interested  in  several  tramway 
enterprises  in  Europe  and  in  South  America — Mr. 
Daniel  Heineman.  I  invited  him  with  Mr.  Millard  K. 
Shaler  and  Mr.  William  Hulse — American  citizens  like- 
wise, and  resident  in  Brussels — to  meet  me  at  the  Lega- 
tion, and  we  organized  a  committee,  with  Mr.  Heine- 
man  at  its  head,  to  undertake  the  relief  of  our  fellow- 
citizens  who  had  been  overwhelmed  by  the  war.  Funds 
were  raised,  a  house  was  rented  where  Americans  might 
find  shelter,  and  thus,  by  the  admirable  and  efficient  ef- 
forts of  these  gentlemen,  all  the  Americans  who  wished 
to  go  home  were  enabled  to  go  to  England  and  eventu- 
ally to  find  their  way  to  their  own  land. 

One  evening  at  dinner-time  came  the  confirmation  of 
the  news  of  the  superb  resistance  of  the  Belgians  at 
Liege.  The  hopes  of  the  town  were  high ;  every  one  was 
expecting  the  French  and  the  English  to  come  to  the 
support.  The  lower  town  was  all  excitement.  A  warm 
and  gentle  rain  was  falling,  but  the  streets  were  brilliant 
and  gay  and  the  throngs  drifted  through  them,  singing 
the  "Braban^onne"  and  the  "Marsellaise,"  and  every- 
where were  the  Belgian  and  the  French  colours.  The 
little  tables  on  the  sidewalks  before  the  cafes  were  all 
surrounded,  and  passing  slowly  down  the  Boulevard 
Anspach,  blazing  with  its  electricity,  one  heard  now  and 
then  the  crash  of  broken  glass;  the  crowds  were  break- 
ing the  vitrines  of  German  shops  or  shops  with  German 
names.  Over  the  door  of  "Chez  Fritz,''  the  great  cafe 
in  the  Boulevard  Anspach,  was  the  appealing  placard: 

''Fritz  est  hon  JLuxembourgeois,  mais  la  maison  est 
belger 

77 


BELGIUM 

The  night  was  so  warm,  the  fine  misty  rain  so  gentle 
and  refreshing!  There  was  a  kind  of  gaiety  abroad; 
even  the  showers  of  glass  from  those  shattered  German 
windows  fell  with  a  merry  tinkle,  and  the  crowd  laughed 
joyously,  expecting  the  French  and  the  English  to  ar- 
rive any  moment,  expecting  the  "big  battle"  in  which 
the  combined  Belgian,  French,  and  English  forces  were 
to  annihilate  the  Germans. 

And  then  at  midnight  a  new  rumour  shuddered 
through  the  town.  Men  were  going  along  the  streets 
ringing  all  the  door  bells  and  shouting: 

'^L'eau  de  la  ville  est  empoisonnee!  Ueau  de  la  ville 
est  empoisonnee  I" 

They  said  that  the  German  Uhlans  had  poisoned  the 
sources  of  the  water  of  Brussels. 

There  was  no  truth  in  the  tale,  of  course.  We  were 
destined  to  become  rather  well  acquainted  with  the  phe- 
nomenon of  rumour.  But  no  matter  how  stupid,  nor  how 
often  disproved,  there  were  always  some  to  believe,  and 
in  this  instance  there  were  many  poor  folk  who,  in  their 
credulity  and  fear,  went  thirsty  for  days. 


xiy 

RUMOUE 

Bismarck  says  somewhere  that  never  were  rumours  so 
rife  as  in  time  of  war,  and  he  was  an  authority  on  most 
things  pertaining  to  the  art  or  the  science  of  war,  if  it  is 
an  art  or  a  science.  We  could  seldom  trace  the  rumours 
to  their  origin;  I  do  not  know  that  we  ever  tried,  but 
on  one  occasion  I  was  able  to  lay  the  ghost  of  one  rumour 
that  was  constantly  repeated  and  believed  during  those 
first  tragic  days  when  we  were  so  new  to  the  grim  busi- 
ness. That  rumour  related  to  wireless  telegraph  in- 
stallations ;  when  people  were  not  seeing  spies  they  were 
hearing  the  click  of  wireless  instruments.  One  morning, 
at  half -past  eight  o'clock,  Monsieur  Carton  de  Wiart 
was  announced  on  a  matter  of  immediate  importance, 
and  I  went  down  to  find  the  tall,  handsome  Belgian 
Minister  of  Justice  in  my  cabinet,  haggard  from  sleep- 
less nights,  but  well  groomed  as  ever,  and  elegant  in 
high  hat  and  frock-coat.  He  came  to  inform  me  that 
the  Belgian  Government  had  reliable  information  that 
there  was  a  wireless-telegraph  instrument  on  the  roof 
of  the  German  Legation;  the  garde  civique  that  had 
been  detailed  there  at  my  request  to  protect  the  Lega- 
tion had  heard  it  working  during  the  night.  The  Gov- 
ernment, of  course,  wished  to  be  correct,  and  as  there 
were  no  precedents,  he  proposed  that  the  Procureur  du 
Roi  and  some  of  the  Justices  of  the  Cour  de  Cassation, 
institute  an  inquiry  and  in  a  regular,  formal  and  legal 
manner  ascertain  the  facts. 

79 


BELGIUM 

"Maisf'  I  said,  "il  y  a  un  moyen  beaucoup  plus 
pratique^ 

''Lequeir 

"Alter  voir.  Vous  m'accompagnerez,  riest-ce  pas? 
Allans, " 

He  was  surprised  but  pleased.  I  asked  him  to  pro- 
cure a  wireless-telegraph  expert  and  said  that  I  would 
go  with  him  whenever  he  was  ready.  He  went  away, 
came^back  in  half  an  hour  with  his  expert — a  lithe,  agile 
young  chap  in  rubber-soled  shoes — and,  with  Gibson  and 
de  Leval,  we  all  went  over  to  the  German  Legation. 
The  members  of  the  garde  civique  on  duty  there 
crowded  up  to  assure  us  that  the  instrument  could  still 
be  heard  spluttering  away,  and  we  routed  out  the  star- 
tled old  Grabowsky  and,  with  him  to  guide  us,  ascended 
to  the  grenier.  He  opened  a  trap-door  in  the  roof,  and 
the  lovely  morning  light  came  through  from  the  patch 
of  blue  sky  above ;  then  he  produced  a  frail  little  ladder 
and  I  invited  Monsieur  Carton  de  Wiart  to  ascend.  But 
the  Minister  of  Justice  is  a  large  and  heavy  man,  and 
he  did  not  venture  to  ascend  such  a  ladder  and  clamber 
onto  that  steep  roof. 

And  so  I  went  up  and  the  expert  came  after  me,  and 
then  Gibson,  and  we  clambered  about  over  the  tiles  and 
among  the  chimney-pots.  Monsieur  I'Expert  went 
everywhere,  clipped  a  few  wires — telephone,  no  doubt — 
but  shook  his  head;  no  wireless  to  be  found  anywhere. 
And  while  we  were  looking  about  I  saw,  to  my  surprise, 
almost  at  my  feet,  a  trap-door  slowly  open;  then  a 
head  came  forth,  and  presently  there  rose,  like  the 
morning  sun  before  my  eye,  a  dark  handsome  face, 
hair  carefully  combed  down,  monocle  in  left  astonished 
eye,  high  tight  collar,  butterfly  cravat,  smart  coat,  ele- 

80 


RUMOUR 

gant  hands,  manicured  nails,  a  cigarette — and  there  was 
Senor  Fehx  Cavalcanti  de  Lacerda,  the  Secretary  of 
the  Brazihan  Legation,  the  premises  of  which  adjoined 
those  of  the  German  Legation.  Cavalcanti  was  speech- 
less with  surprise,  but  I  divined  the  situation,  greeted 
him  and  said: 

"If  I'm  violating  Brazilian  territory  it's  quite  by  mis- 
take and  unintentional,  and  I  formally  apologize." 

He  laughed  and  I  explained  and  he  told  me  that  his 
chief,  beholding  men  on  the  roof  of  his  Legation,  had 
sent  him  up  to  investigate. 

And  while  we  were  talking,  suddenly,  a  sound,  a  sharp 
rasping  sound,  broken  into  what  might  very  well  have 
been  dots  and  dashes— ^"Zsszzt — Zsszzt — Zzt  Zs — Zt — 

Zssssssttss "    It  was  precisely  like  the  wireless  I  h  ad 

heard  on  steamships  in  the  Atlantic!  Monsieur  I'Expert 
cocked  his  head,  pricked  up  his  ears,  and  then  we  all 
fixed  the  place  whence  came  the  sound  .  .  .  and  it  was  a 
rusty  girouette  squeaking  in  the  wind!  And  so  that  sen- 
sation ended — to  the  regret  of  the  gardes  civiques  when 
we  went  down  and  informed  them. 

It  was  from  Monsieur  Carton  de  Wiart  that  morn- 
ing that  we  had  our  first  news  of  the  horrors  of  Vise; 
the  Germans,  after  their  check  at  Fleron,  had  burned 
the  town  and  shot  the  inhabitants. 

When  we  returned  to  the  Legation  the  Germans, 
those  frightened  Germans  who  were  then  of  Brussels, 
were  crowding  the  halls,  turning  the  Legation  into  a 
bedlam.  The  crowd  inside  increased  as  the  day  ad- 
vanced and  as  the  news  spread  that  we  were  charged 
with  the  protection  of  German  interests,  groups  of  the 
idle  and  curious  gathered  outside  in  the  Rue  de  Treves. 
And  suddenly,  late  in  the  afternoon,  over  the  pande- 

81 


BELGIUM 

monium  there  was  the  horrid  sound  of  strife  and  angry- 
cries,  and  then  blows  at  the  outer  doors;  the  Crowd  had 
rushed  upon  some  German  entering  the  Legation,  and 
when  the  door  was  closed  behind  him  in  the  face  of  the 
crowd  the  throng  began  kicking  on  it.  But  the  admir- 
able de  Leval  went  out  and  spoke  to  the  crowd  while 
the  German  cowered  behind  a  steel  filing  case  back  in 
the  chancellerie.  We  telephoned  to  the  authorities,  and 
in  a  half  an  hour  a  detail  of  Gardes  Civiques  was  posted 
at  the  Legation,  patrolling  the  streets,  and  all  was  quiet 
— and  our  frightened  Germans  waiting  for  the  train 
that  had  been  provided.  Gibson  and  Mr.  Roy  Nasmith, 
the  American  Vice-Consul,  were  rounding  up  the  Ger- 
mans; the  original  four  hundred  whom  the  Belgian 
priest  had  sheltered  in  the  abbey  had  grown  to  four  thou- 
sand, and  to  make  doubly  sure  I  went  myself  to  see 
Monsieur  Carton  de  Wiart.  I  found  him  in  his  office, 
where  there  was  a  great  portrait  of  Tolstoi  on  an  easfel 
— Tolstoi  and  this  madness!  Monsieur  Carton  de  Wi- 
art was  very  kind  and  not  the  least  bitter  toward  the 
Germans.  All  had  been  admirably  organized,  trains 
had  been  provided  to  carry  2500  Germans  to  the  Dutch 
frontier  that  night  and  we  had  telegraphed  Dr.  van 
Dyke,  our  Minister  at  The  Hague,  who  was  to  have 
them  met  there  by  other  trains,  and  so  sent  back  to  their 
homes  in  Germany.  The  Germans  were  to  be  assem- 
bled at  the  Cirque  Royal,  guarded  by  the  gendarmes 
and  by  them  escorted  to  the  station. 

There  was  to  be  a  meeting  that  evening  of  the  diplo- 
matic corps  at  the  Papal  Nunciature,  and  Senor  Bar- 
ros  Moreira,  the  Brazilian  Minister,  came  over  after  din- 
ner that  we  might  go  together.  As  we  went  down  stairs 
on  our  way  out,  there  in  the  hall  we  saw  a  woman  in 

82 


RUMOUR 

tears;  her  husband,  a  German,  was  with  her,  sitting 
in  dumb  Teutonic  melancholy.  They  had  with  them  a 
little  boy  with  golden  curls,  one  of  the  prettiest  children 
I  ever  saw,  with  the  face  of  one  of  Raphael's  cherubs, 
who  looked  up  inquiringly  into  his  mother's  sad  counte- 
nance. I  recognized  the  woman  as  an  American  who 
had  been  there  the  day  before ;  she  had  married  her  Ger- 
man husband,  she  said,  in  Iowa,  where  they  had  lived 
for  years,  he  engaged  successfully  in  business.  But  he 
had  neglected  to  become  naturalized,  and  that  summer, 
in  Europe  on  a  visit  home,  had  been  overtaken  by  the 
tide  of  war.  Now  he  said  he  must  go  back  to  Germany 
and  enter  the  army.  Before  such  a  prospect  they  were 
all  in  terror,  he  sitting  dumbly  by  the  while. 

At  sight  of  me  the  woman  sprang  forward  and  seized 
my  hand,  as  though  I  were  her  last  refuge  in  the  world, 
and  with  such  sobs  and  lamentations  as  might  break  a 
heart,  fell  on  her  knees,  refusing  to  let  go  my  hand  and 
dragging  tragically  toward  me  on  her  knees.  Barros 
Moreira  was  impressed  by  the  scene,  and  by  the  figure 
of  the  little  boy  standing  by,  receiving  his  baptism  in 
the  misery  of  this  world.  I  did  not  know  what  to  do. 
I  felt  the  embarrassment  of  one  of  our  race  in  such  a 
predicament,  tore  my  hand  away,  picked  up  the  pretty 
baby  and  kissed  him,  and  left — we  had  to  get  to  that 
meeting — the  woman  dragging  after  me  all  the  way  to 
the  door.  .  .  . 

Barros  Moreira  and  I  drove  over  to  the  Nunciature 
where,  after  the  usual  greetings,  our  colleagues  assem- 
bled in  a  great  circle  in  a  lofty  room  hung  all  in  crim- 
son. The  Nuncio  presided,  sitting  there  on  a  divan 
leaning  over  a  little  table,  his  great  gold  pectoral  cross 
clinking  against  the  chain  on  the  breast  of  his  purple 

83 


BELGIUM 

soutane  as  he  made  graceful  gestures  with  the  white  deli- 
cate hand  that  wore  an  Archbishop's  ring.  He  was  ex- 
plaining that  the  Court  would  probably  go  to  Antwerp 
in  a  day  or  two,  and  that  in  that  event  we  should  follow. 
It  was  a  subject  that  had  been  discussed  among  the 
diplomatists  for  several  days,  ever  since  the  seance  of 
Tuesday.  I  was  opposed  to  our  going,  that  is,  those  of 
us  who  represented  neutral  nations — the  belligerent  of 
course,  in  the  event  of  the  Germans  coming,  would  be 
compelled  to  leave;  I  felt,  somehow,  that  there  might 
be  work  for  us  to  do  at  the  capital.  The  Marquis  of 
Villalobar  was  of  the  same  opinion;  we  had  talked  it 
over  and  agreed  to  oppose  the  exodus.  We  both  made 
speeches  against  the  project,  and  several  others  spoke, 
M.  Klobukowski  among  them,  saying  that  it  was  of  no 
great  moment  since  he  knew  the  Allies  would  soon  be 
at  Brussels.  Sir  Francis,  much  to  my  disappointment, 
was  not  there.  The  taik  flowed  on  interminably,  French 
in  all  the  accents  of  this  world,  until  footmen  came 
bearing  in  wines  and  tea  and  cigars  and  cigarettes  and 
then  the  great  red  salon  was  filled  with  the  haze  of  to- 
bacco-smoke and  every  one  talked  at  once.  It  was  de- 
cided finally  by  a  vote,  to  go,  though  there  were  certain 
mental  reservations,  and  Monsieur  Djuvara,  the  Rou- 
manian Minister,  sat  down  at  the  Nuncio's  table  to 
write  out  the  resolution,  with  Villalobar  and  Klobukow- 
ski and  the  Nuncio  and  Blancas,  and  I  giving  him  ad- 
vice, until  my  friend  Ouang  Yong  Pao,  the  Chinese 
Minister,  who  honoured  me  often  by  coming  to  me  for 
advice,  drew  me  aside  and  asked  me  what  it  was  all 
about.  We  finished  the  resolution,  however,  gossiped 
about  the  war,  smoked,  and  came  away.  .  .  . 

When  I  reached  home  I  learned  that  my  wife  and 

84 


RUMOUR 

the  mothers  and  Miss  Larner  had  taken  the  little  boy- 
upstairs  and  played  with  him  all  evening  until  Gibson 
took  the  little  family  away  in  the  motor  to  the  Cirque 
Royal,  where  they  assembled  the  Germans  who  were  to 
go  out  on  the  refugee  train  that  night.  I  had  a  vision 
of  that  bright,  pretty,  innocent  little  child  and  the 
little  family  whirled  away  in  the  great  whirlpool  into 
darkness — to  what  fate?  We  should  never  know,  I 
said,  never  see  any  of  them  again.  .  .  . 

But  we  did.  A  few  days  after  the  Germans  had  es- 
tablished themselves  in  Brussels  the  father  of  the  pretty 
little  boy  took  a  room  near  Gibson's  apartment  in  the 
Rue  St.-Boniface,  and  in  his  quality  of  German  spy 
watched  Gibson's  every  movement. 


XV 


REPATRIATING   GERMANS 


Gibson  had  driven  away  from  the  Legation  that  eve- 
ning with  the  little  German-American  family  to  the 
Cirque  Royal,  the  woman  cowering  all  the  way  in  ter- 
ror in  the  bottom  of  the  car,  and  he  and  Nasmith  were 
up  all  that  night  sending  off  the  Germans. 

The  woman's  fears,  of  course,  were  groundless.  When 
the  motor  drew  up  to  the  Cirque  Royal  and  the  crowds 
pressed  around  it,  Gibson  took  the  child  and  held  it 
aloft  and  said: 

"The  Belgians  don't  eat  babies!" 

A  big  gendarme  put  forth  his  hands,  took  the  boy, 
and  said: 

"No,  nor  their  fathers  or  mothers  either!" 

And  so  he  and  the  child  led  the  way  into  the  great 
Circus.  There  nearly  five  thousand  Germans  were 
gathered,  twice  the  number  expected.  They  were  all 
in  excitement  and  terror,  and  Gibson  had  to  go  about 
reassuring  them.  The  officers  of  the  Gendarmes  and  the 
garde  civique  with  their  own  money  bought  chocolate 
to  give  to  the  children,  and  later  Madame  Carton  de 
Wiart,  wife  of  the  Belgian  Minister  of  Justice,  came 
with  hot  milk  and  other  comforts  for  the  women  and 
children. 

The  Belgian  authorities  promptly  provided  additional 
coaches  and  after  midnight  the  transfer  of  the  refugees 
to  the  station  began.  It  was  carried  on  without  inci- 
dent, and  that  morning  at  daylight  the  last  of  the  four 

86 


REPATRIATING  GERMANS 

long  trains  drew  out  of  the  Gare  du  Nord,  bearing  the 
Germans  toward  Esschen  on  the  Dutch  frontier. 

But  the  Germans  continued  to  gather;  we  had  to 
procure  other  trains  that  night  and  for  several  nights 
thereafter.  Mr.  Ethelbert  Watts,  our  Consul-General, 
had  been  in  France  on  his  vacation  when  the  war  came 
on,  and  only  succeeded  after  many  adventures  by  sea 
and  land  in  returning  to  Brussels,  coming  around  by 
way  of  the  coast,  Knocke  and  Ostend.  He  took  the 
matter  then  in  charge,  and  with  the  aid  of  Gibson, 
Nasmith  and  de  Leval,  finally  sent  off  most  of  the 
Germans  to  Holland.  There  had  been  5000  that  first 
night  and  there  were  2500  the  next  night,  1200  the 
night  thereafter,  400  the  next,  and  so  on  in  a  diminish- 
ing ratio  until  all  of  those  who  wished  to  go  had  left. 

The  action  of  the  Belgian  Government  in  this  emer- 
gency was  superb  in  spirit  and  in  execution,  and  the 
population  nobly  generous,  and  I  could  not  resist  the 
temptation  to  write  a  note  to  M.  Carton  de  Wiart 
expressing  my  appreciation  and  admiration.  Not 
a  German  was  injured  during  those  days,  and  no  more 
serious  harm  was  done  than  that  resulting  from  the 
breaking  of  windows  in  the  first  ebullition  of  excite- 
ment. The  German  proprietor  of  the  great  depart- 
ment store  known  as  Tietz  did  indeed  consider  that  an 
auspicious  moment  to  adorn  his  place  of  business  in 
the  crowded  Rue  Neuve  with  German  flags,  and  they 
were  promptly  torn  down;  but  nothing  more  serious 
occurred;  the  Burgomaster  of  Brussels,  M.  Adolphe 
Max,  issued  a  proclamation  appealing  to  the  popula- 
tion to  remain  calm,^  while  the  Minister  of  the  Interior 

^  Nous  adressons  un  nouvel  appel  au  calme  et  au  sang-froid  de  la 
population. 

87 


BELGIUM 

published  a  statement  explaining  the  laws  and  customs 
of  war.  And  that  day,  Friday,  a  state  of  siege  was 
proclaimed. 

I  had  a  call  from  Ouang  Yong  Pao,  who  wuth  one 
of  his  secretaries,  Shu-Tze,  came  to  me  to  ask  what 
the  colleagues  had  decided  to  do  at  the  meeting  the 
night  before.  I  explained,  and  told  him  that  I  should 
remain  in  Brussels.  He  said  he  would  do  as  I  did. 
Shu-Tze,  the  little  secretary,  spoke  of  the  dangers  one 
might  incur  at  Antwerp,  but  I  reminded  him  of  his 
diplomatic  extra-territoriality  and  privileges.  He 
leaned  forward,  and  his  face  wore  a  curious  smile,  as  he 
said: 

"Mais  les  canons  n'ont  pas  les  yeux!" 

"Toute  atteinte  portee  a  la  propriete  de  sujets  allemands,  toute 
violence  contre  ceux-ci,  pourrait  etre  le  pretexte  de  graves  repre- 
sailles. 

"Les  citoyens  beiges  qui  commettraient  de  pareils  actes,  se  rend- 
raient  done  coupables  d'un  veritable  crime  contre  la  patrie. 

"II  convient  de  s'abstenir  de  tout  sevice  a  I'egard  des  sujets  alle- 
mands  qui  seraient  soup9onnes  ou  convaincus  d'espionnag'e  et  qui 
devraient  etre  arretes  de  ce  chef.  II  est  du  plus  haut  interet  de 
laisser  a  I'autorite  militaire  seule  le  pouvoir  d'exercer  les  chatiments 
que  comportent  de  scmblables  faits." 


XVI 

A   BIT   OF   HISTORY 

An  incident  occurred  in  those  early  days  of  August 
which  I  may  as  well  relate  here,  though  for  its  se- 
quence I  shall  have  to  anticipate  the  chronology  of 
events. 

In  the  early  evening  of  Saturday,  the  eighth  of 
August,  there  came  to  me  from  Dr.  van  Dyke  a  message 
saying  that  he  had  been  asked  by  his  German  colleague 
at  The  Hague  to  request  me  to  present,  on  behalf  of  the 
Imperial  German  Government,  a  message  to  the  Bel- 
gian Government.  The  message  of  the  Imperial  Ger- 
man Government  was  in  German  and  en  clair:  de  Leval 
translated  it  while  we  waited  impatiently.    It  was  this : 

"The  fortress  of  Liege  has  been  taken  by  assault  after 
a  brave  defense.  The  German  Government  most 
deeply  regrets  that  bloody  encounters  should  have  re- 
sulted from  the  attitude  of  the  Belgian  Government ;  it 
is  only  through  the  force  of  circumstances  that  they 
had,  owing  to  the  military  measures  of  France,  to  take 
the  grave  decision  of  entering  Belgium  and  occupying 
Liege  as  a  base  for  further  military  operations.  Now 
that  the  Belgian  Army  has  upheld  the  honour  of  its  arms 
by  its  heroic  resistance  to  a  very  superior  force,  the 
German  Government  beg  the  King  of  the  Belgians  and 
the  Belgian  Government  to  spare  Belgium  the  further 
horrors  of  war.  The  German  Government  are  ready 
for  any  compact  with  Belgium  which  can  be  reconciled 
with  their  arrangements  with  France.     Germany  once 

89 


BELGIUM 

more  gives  her  solemn  assurance  that  it  is  not  her  in- 
tention to  appropriate  Belgian  territory  to  herself,  and 
that  such  an  intention  is  far  from  her  thoughts.  Ger- 
many is  still  ready  to  evacuate  Belgium  as  soon  as  the 
state  of  war  will  allow  her  to  do  so." 

De  Leval  finished  his  translation  and  handed  me  the 
text,  standing  there  with  an  inquiry  in  his  brown  eyes 
while  I  read  it.  I  was  standing  there  by  Gibson's  desk 
in  the  room  of  the  secretaries.  I  read  the  despatch  over 
and  over ;  looked  at  Gibson,  looked  at  de  Leval,  looked 
at  Miss  Larner,  amazed  beyond  any  word.  I  stood 
there  with  the  telegram  in  my  hand,  looked  at  the  Eng- 
lish and  then  at  the  German  words.  What  hand  had 
written  them?  What  mentality  had  conceived  them? 
Were  there,  after  all,  in  this  world,  no  such  things  as 
honour  and  faith?  I  let  the  despatch  fall  to  the  table, 
one  thing  at  least  decided — ^namely,  that  no  such  offer 
should  soil  my  hands. 

But  how  to  manage  it?  After  all,  we  were  charged 
with  the  representation  of  German  interests.  And  I 
began  to  think  about  a  despatch  to  Washington.  I 
would  point  out  what  the  President  and  JNIr.  Bryan,  of 
course,  must  already  realise — that  this  war  was  but  the 
old  struggle  between  democracy  and  autocracy  in  the 
world,  and  that  little  Belgium  was  just  then  holding 
this  Thermopylean  pass  for  democracy.  And  I  sat 
down  at  Miss  Larner's  desk  and  began  to  write  a  dis- 
patch in  these  terms,  trying  to  make  the  view  accord 
with  our  declared  neutrality — a  somewhat  difficult  task, 
as  I  found. 

Gibson  was  standing  by,  still  studying  the  telegram. 
After  a  while  he  said: 

"There  are  no  cipher  groups  here." 

90 


A  BIT  OF  HISTORY 

"Then,  perhaps,"  I  thought,  "it  is  not  authentic." 

I  thought  it  over  a  long  while ;  it  was,  after  all,  strange 
that  diplomacy  should  send  such  an  amazing  proposal 
en  clair,  for  all  the  world  to  read.  Perhaps  one  would 
be  justified  in  giving  the  Imperial  German  Govern- 
ment the  benefit  of  the  doubt  that  gentlemen  would 
construe  as  generous.  And  so,  not  without  a  certain  re- 
luctance, I  tore  up  the  dispatch  I  was  writing  and  wrote 
another  telegram  to  Washington,  pointing  out  that  the 
remarkable  message  bore  no  cipher  groups  or  other  evi- 
dence of  authenticity  and  asking  for  instructions.  We 
were  all  night  putting  the  messages  into  cipher. 

Meanwhile  the  Belgians  were  holding  on  at  Liege 
and  perhaps  the  Allies  were  getting  up.  I  told  Gibson 
that  he  might  tell  Leo  d'Ursel  if  he  wished  to  do  so — and 
he  did.  Count  d'Ursel,  he  reported,  was  much  im- 
pressed and  had  run  at  once  to  see  Davignon  and  de 
Broqueville. 

The  beautiful  dawn  was  breaking  as  I  went  to  bed. 

The  following  morning,  Sunday  the  ninth,  I  had  a 
telegram  from  Dr.  van  Dyke  at  The  Hague,  whose  sym- 
pathy and  prompt  friendly  comprehension  did  so  much 
during  that  trying  time  to  make  my  task  less  heavy. 
The  telegram  was  brief;  it  said  that  the  message  from 
the  Imperial  German  Government  was  authentic,  which 
v/as  about  all  that  a  neutral  diplomatist  could  say  of  it, 
but  he  added  one  other  consolatory  word:  "Congratu- 
lations." 

On  Monday  I  had  a  telegram  from  Mr.  Bryan  re- 
serving instructions  until  the  genuineness  of  the  mes- 
sage should  be  established.  On  Tuesday,  the  eleventh,  I 
learned  that  the  message  had  been  delivered  by  the 
German  Minister  at  The  Hague  to  M.  Loudon,  the 

91 


BELGIUM 

Dutch  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs,  who  was  requested 
to  hand  it  to  Baron  Fallon,  the  Belgian  Minister  at 
The  Hague,  which  he  did,  and  Baron  Fallon  sent  it  to 
Brussels. 

Count  Leo  d'Ursel  came  over  from  the  Foreign  Of- 
fice with  word  from  M.  Davignon  that  the  Belgian 
Government  was  preparing  a  reply  that  would  be  a  re- 
fusal to  entertain  the  proposal.  This  reply  was  sent 
to  Baron  Fallon  to  be  delivered  to  the  German  Gov- 
ernment through  The  Hague  on  Wednesday,  and  was 
as  follows: 

Brussels,  August  12,  1914. 

Please  communicate  the  following  telegram  to  the  Netherlands 
Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs : 

The  proposal  made  to  us  by  the  German  Government  repeats 
the  proposal  which  was  formulated  in  the  ultimatum  of  August  2. 
Faithful  to  her  international  obligations,  Belgium  can  only  reiterate 
her  reply  to  that  uiltimatum,  the  more  so  as  since  August  3  her 
neutrality  has  been  violated,  a  distressing  war  has  been  waged  on 
her  territory,  and  the  guarantors  of  her  neutrality  have  responded 
loyally  and  without  delay  to  her  appeal. 

Davignon. 

Several  days  later  I  had  a  telegram  from  Washing- 
ton asking  if  I  had  any  further  information  as  to  the 
authenticity  of  the  German  proposal,  and  I  could  reply 
that  while  the  message  was  indubitably  genuine,  it  had 
been  delivered  through  The  Hague,  and  that  the  ques- 
tion had  no  longer  any  but  an  academic  interest. 

All  of  the  notes  of  the  Belgian  Government  were 
conceived  in  this  lofty  spirit.  I  had  transmitted  to  it 
a  day  or  so  before  a  note  from  the  German  Govern- 
ment complaining  that  the  Belgians  were  condemning 
as  spies  men  who  were  innocent.     The  Belgian  Gov- 

92 


A  BIT  OF  HISTORY 

ernment's  reply  to  this  complaint  was  beautiful  in  its 
dignity  and  calm,  and  as  it  seems  to  lose  in  transla- 
tion I  give  it  in  the  language  in  which  it  was  writ- 
ten: 

La  Belgique,  terre  classique  du  droit  et  de  la  liherte, 
traverse  ces  douloureux  evenements  sans  la  moindre 
haine  a  Vendroit  de  ceux  qui  lui  imposent  les  pires  souf- 
f ranees.  Elle  a  trop  le  souci  du  droit  et  de  la  vie  hu- 
maine  pour  condamner  sans  preuves  et  sans  jugement 
regulier. 

The  two  dispatches,  the  one  that  opens  and  the  one 
that  closes  this  chapter,  may  stand  as  symbolic  of  the 
two  nations  whose  diplomacy  conceived  them. 


XVII 

LES    FORTS   TIENNENT   TOUJOURS 

Who,  having  lived  in  Brussels  through  that  terrible 
month  of  August,  can  think  of  those  days,  with  their 
various  emotions,  their  exaltations,  their  hopes  and 
fears,  their  terror  and  despair,  without  the  memory  of 
that  wonderful  sunlight  which  filled  them  to  the  brim? 
Day  after  day  went  by,  and  with  each  new  morning 
the  miracle  was  renewed.  It  was  a  phenomenon  unusual 
in  Brussels  and  in  Belgium,  where  it  rains  as  often  as 
it  does  in  Scotland.  It  was  of  the  irony  implicit  in 
life.  There  were  moments  when,  looking  at  the  wide 
cloudless  sky,  thinking  perhaps  of  Bois  Fleuri,  where 
doubtless  the  rabbits  still  nibbled  at  the  rose-leaves, 
and  the  two  magpies  fluttered  about  with  the  bonne 
nouvelle  they  never  delivered,  or  of  Ravenstein,  where 
the  larks  were  warbling  in  the  sun  high  above  the  elev- 
enth hole,  one  would  say  that  all  this  madness  and  fury 
could  not  be!  That  a  world  so  lovely,  wherein  life 
might  have  so  much  beauty  and  so  much  glory  and 
meaning,  should  instead  be  given  over  to  such  an  insane 
orgy  of  blood  and  lust  and  cruelty  was  to  make  one 
despair  of  the  human  race.  It  could  not  be !  And  yet — 
there  were  those  miserable  German  refugees  forever 
huddling  in  the  corridors  of  the  Legation,  shaken  by 
their  fears;  apd  there  in  the  court  yard,  whiling  away 
their  time  playing  at  cards,  the  lads  of  the  garde  ci- 
vique,  those  young  lawyers  and  doctors  and  clerks,  that 
rudimentary  organism  of  the  Belgian  commune,  the  old 

94 


LES  FORTS  TIENNENT  TOUJOURS 

Burgerwachtj  with  its  traditions  of  Jacques  van  Arte- 
velde. 

The  heroic  resistance  of  the  httle  Belgian  army  in 
the  forts  along  the  Meuse — the  forts  that  General  Le- 
man,  who  then  commanded  them,  had  himself  con- 
structed— created  an  extraordinary  enthusiasm  that  vi- 
brated nervously  in  the  sparkling  sunlight,  producing 
a  kind  of  contagious  exhilaration,  a  veritable  intoxica- 
tion. Men  met  each  other  in  the  streets  and  said 
ecstatically : 

'^Les  forts  tiennent  toujours!" 

The  newspapers  were  full  of  the  valour  of  the  Bel- 
gians. The  French  Republic  had  conferred  the  Legion 
of  Honour  on  the  City  of  Liege  and  the  French  colours 
fluttered  brightly  on  the  statue  of  Liege  at  the  Cin- 
quantenaire.  Complimentary  letters  were  exchanged 
between  President  Poincare  and  King  Albert.  All  Bel- 
gium was  proud.  There  was  a  new  spirit  of  solidarity; 
the  old  feeling  between  Flemish  and  Walloons  was  for- 
gotten; in  those  fierce  fires  a  nation  was  being  born 
anew. 

The  Grand'  Place  had  never  looked  so  beautiful.  The 
flag  of  Belgium  and  the  red  and  green  of  Brussels 
floated  on  the  Hotel  de  Ville;  there  were  flags  on  the 
guild-houses  too,  and  over  by  the  Maison  du  Roi  there 
were  the  great  umbrellas  and  the  masses  of  colour  of  the 
flower-market.  But  the  Place  was  very  still;  looking 
at  it,  one  might  see  the  various  protagonists  who  had 
struggled  there  for  liberty  in  all  ages,  as  Belgium  was 
struggling  then.  In  the  excitement  emotions  were 
easily  stirred;  tears,  for  no  reason,  would  start  to  the 
eyes  of  those  with  whom  one  talked.  There  was  some- 
thing  wistful   in    all   the    faces;    somehow,    humanity 

95 


BELGIUM 

seemed  no  longer  ugly,  but  dear,  good  to  look  upon. 
One  spoke  to  persons  one  did  not  know — a  kind  of 
miracle  that,  in  the  general  solemn  camaraderie. 

Lovely  Brussels  was  lovelier  than  ever,  but  somehow 
with  a  wistful  waning  loveliness,  infinitely  pathetic. 
All  over  the  Quartier  Leopold  the  white  fa9ades  of 
the  houses  bloomed  in  flags,  their  black  and  red  and 
yellow  colours  transparent  in  the  sunlight ;  in  the  Foret 
the  sunlight  filtered  through  the  leaves,  irradiating  the 
green  boles  of  the  trees,  and  through  the  hazy  sunlight 
that  lay  on  the  fields  the  mount  of  Waterloo  was  out- 
lined against  the  sky. 

In  the  Bois,  in  the  midst  of  woodland  peace,  the 
children  were  playing  and  lovers  whispered  still  their 
marvelous  discoveries.  The  expected  battle  was  not 
yet — but  the  Uhlans  were  drawing  nearer;  one  could 
almost  fancy  them  there  behind  the  trees.  But  no,  not 
yet ; — it  was  only  a  troop  of  Gardes  Civiques  a  Cheval, 
in  their  uniforms  of  green  and  their  grey  fur  busbies, 
young  Davignon  among  them,  waving  his  hand  at  me. 

At  night  the  town  was  strangely  still,  every  one 
seemed  to  be  waiting.  The  outposts  of  the  German 
army  were  only  thirty  miles  away;  the  German  cav- 
alry was  said  to  be  at  Tirlemont.  But  the  movements 
of  the  French  and  the  English  were  surrounded  with 
impenetrable  mystery.  There  was  nothing  to  do  but 
to  wait. 

"De  quoi  demain  sera-t-il  fait?"  de  Leva!  would  say 
before  going  home  for  the  night. 

And  yet  nothing  happened.  The  days  went  by.  The 
city  grew  quieter,  was  filled  indeed  with  a  kind  of 
silent  glory;  with  its  countless  flags,  like  mammoth  tu- 

96 


LES  FORTS  TIENNENT  TOUJOURS 

lips  full  of  light,  the  shimmer  of  the  sun — and  the 
waiting. 

Our  information  was  all  so  fragmentary,  so  unrelated, 
so  disproportionate.  We  were  like  the  man  who  tried 
to  write  a  history  of  the  Civil  War  while  a  battle  was 
going  on — a  battle  which,  in  the  light  of  subsequent 
developments,  proved  to  be  only  a  skirmish.  We  knew, 
in  fact,  nothing  save  bits  of  gossip  or  small  items  of 
personal  interest.  The  young  Princes,  Leopold  and 
Charles,  had  appeared  on  the  boulevard  with  their 
governess,  quite  simply;  the  crowds  swarmed  around 
them  enthusiastically;  and,  returning  to  the  Legation 
one  afternoon,  I  could  tell  how,  near  the  Hopital  St.- 
Jean,  there  at  the  Rue  Pacheco,  the  military  guard  had 
suddenly  called  "Garde  a  vous!"  and  there  was  the 
Queen  in  her  motor,  with  General  Jungbluth  in  uniform 
by  her  side;  and  we  uncovered  while  Her  Majesty, 
who  seemed  to  bear  the  sorrows  of  her  country  on  her 
heart,  went  in  to  visit  the  wounded  who  had  already 
been  brought  in  from  Liege. 

In  the  universal  and  naive  ignorance,  every  one  was 
expecting  a  great  battle,  somewhere  there  on  that  his- 
toric battle-ground  of  Europe  which  it  had  ever  been 
Belgium's  fate  to  be;  every  one  spoke  of  it,  waited 
for  it!  Dr.  E.  J.  Dillon,  the  war  correspondent,  sit- 
ting there  in  grey  \weeds  in  my  office,  smoking  a  cig- 
arette, a  great  inlaid  walking-stick  between  his  knees; 
M.  Klobukowski,  who  came  to  tell  me  that  he  was  turn- 
ing over  his  interests  to  the  Marquis  of  Villalobar; 
and  my  Roumanian  colleague,  M.  Djuvara,  and  his 
wife;  Madame  Djuvara  had  just  returned  through 
moving  accidents  and  hairbreadth  escapes  by  field  and 
flood  from  Germany  via  Rotterdam. 

97 


BELGIUM 

It  was  always  that,  a  great  battle  on  the  morrow — 
as  soon  as  the  French  and  English  could  come  up. 
And  we  awaited  the  great  event ;  some  thought  it  might 
take  place  there  at  Waterloo,  just  as  before  I  Mean- 
while, in  our  lives,  only  the  smallest  incidents. 

A  colleague  comes  to  ask  my  advice  on  a  point  of 
taste.  Should  his  wife  keep  her  German  maid?  Why 
not,  if  she  wished  to  do  so?  Ah!  but  the  other  servants 
refused  to  associate  with  her,  called  her  "a  nasty  pig." 
This  is  different!  No  diplomatic  tact,  however  ex- 
quisite, could  deal  with  that !  The  old  Duchesse  Douai- 
riere  d'Arenberg  sends  to  me  to  ask  protection  for  some 
of  her  German  relatives  in  Belgium.  The  feeling  against 
the  whole  family  is  high,  and  the  dark  and  stately  pal- 
ace there  in  the  Petit  Sablon  is  avoided,  the  glory 
and  prestige  of  its  ancient  noble  name  no  more  able 
than  I  to  save  the  family  it  had  sheltered  from  the 
universal  suspicion  that  blighted  any  one  in  Belgium 
who  had  German  relations.  .  .  . 

It  is  afternoon  and  de  Leval  and  I  are  alone  at  the  Le- 
gation, where  it  is  quiet,  save  for  the  furious  ticking 
of  his  agitated  little  clock.  I  am  reading  Roland  de 
Mare's  column  in  the  Independance  Beige,  when  sud- 
denly a  shot  rings  out  in  the  Rue  de  Treves.  I  pay  no 
attention  at  first,  then,  when  a  fusillade  follows,  I  look 
out  of  the  window  and  see  the  garde  civique  firing  in 
the  air.  In  the  Rue  Belliard  people  are  gazing  upward 
and  the  whole  squad  is  firing  at  the  wide  blue  sky.  The 
servants  rush  upstairs  in  fright,  gather  in  panic  in 
the  hall.  Going  into  the  court  yard  we  see  a  mono- 
plane hors  d'atteinte,  with  the  wide  fan-like  tail  of  the 
German  Taube,  sailing  leisurely  and  unconcernedly 
away  in  the  direction  of  Liege. 

98 


LES  FORTS  TIENNENT  TOUJOURS 

Then  one  evening  a  note  came  from  Count  Clary, 
asking  if  our  Consul  at  Ghent  would  take  over  the 
Austrian  Consulate  there — their  man,  a  Belgian  honor- 
ary Consul — Shaving  resigned  in  indignation.  Also, 
would  I  take  over  the  Austrian  Legation  .  .  .  the  fifth 
invitation  of  this  kind  I  had  received  in  a  week. 

Villalobar  and  I  had  a  long  serious  discussion  of  the 
situation.  I  told  him  of  my  intention  to  remain  in 
Brussels,  no  matter  what  befall;  without  laying  claim 
to  remarkable  prevision,  I  had  a  feeling  that  there 
would  be  work  to  do  there.  I  had  already  accepted  the 
responsibility  of  protecting  British  interests,  and  with 
American  interests  I  felt  that,  anomalous  as  the  situa- 
tion would  be  were  the  Government  to  leave,  that  work 
would  be  more  important  just  then  than  any  other.  He 
was  wholly  of  my  opinion.  He  had  promised  to  take 
over  French  interests,  and  we  agreed  to  act  in  concert. 
We  had  nothing,  then,  to  do  but  wait.  .  .  . 

"Les  forts  tiennent  totcjours/^  .  .  .  But  we  had  seen 
no  soldiers  save  Belgians,  though  a  few  German  pris- 
oners were  brought  in;  they  thought  that  they  were  in^ 
France,  and  expressed  surprise  that  Paris  was  not 
larger. 

Then  one  morning  de  Leval  came  in  with  the  news 
that  the  French  had  arrived;  cavalry  had  entered  the 
city  the  night  before.  He  had  seen  them  from  his  bal- 
cony going  down  the  Avenue  de  la  Toison  d'Or — a 
squadron  of  weary  troopers,  nodding  over  their  horses' 
necks;  and  Gibson  had  seen  them  at  the  Porte  de  Na- 
mur;  they  were  hailed  by  shouts  of  "Vive  la  France!" 
and  the  cavalrymen  roused  themselves  to  reply  ''Vive  la 
Belgique!"     Girls  had  come  out  from  the  cafes  at  the 

99 


BELGIUM 

Porte  de  Namur  with  trays  of  beer,  which  the  soldiers 
drank  thirstily. 

The  city  of  Liege  had  been  occupied  by  the  Germans, 
but  this,  the  communiques  assured  us,  was  unimportant 
so  long  as  the  forts  held,  and  "Us  tiennent  toujours/* 
The  population  there  was  said  to  be  calm,  even  if  host- 
ages had  been  taken,  the  Bishop  and  the  Burgomaster 
among  them.  Then  one  evening  it  was  told  in  town  that 
the  Uhlans  had  been  seen  in  the  Foret  de  Soignes. 

We  went  for  a  drive  in  the  Bois  with  the  feeling  that 
perhaps  it  would  be  for  the  last  time.  There  sud- 
denly, around  a  turn  in  the  road,  into  the  peaceful 
scene,  swept  a  train  of  motor-cars  filled  with  British 
officers;  the  seats  of  the  cars  were  piled  high  with 
baggage,  and  after  them  there  came  two  cars  of  Eng- 
lish nurses.  They  all  rushed  madly  by,  and  our  hearts 
rose  at  our  first  sight  of  the  khaki  uniforms.  Les  An- 
glais were  there  at  last. 


XVIII 

ENGLISH   AND    AMERICAN 

We  saw  no  English,  however,  other  than  those  in 
the  swift  motors  that  dashed  eastward  through  the 
Bois;  no  other  French  than  those  tired  cavalrymen  de 
Leval  had  seen  going  along  the  boulevard,  drooping 
with  fatigue  over  their  horses'  necks.  The  newspapers 
might  announce  that  no  offieial  acknowledgment  of 
the  surrender  of  the  forts  of  Liege  had  been  made,  that 
the  '^situation  reste  favorable/'  ''les  forts  tiennent  tou- 
jours";  the  rumours  that  flew  from  mouth  to  mouth 
were  otherwise,  and  people  knew;  the  slow,  persistent 
truth  percolated  silently. 

Then  one  day  for  the  first  time  there  were  symptoms 
in  the  press  of  the  seriousness  of  the  situation ;  the  three 
o'clock  edition  of  Le  Soir  had  an  allusion  to  grave 
events,  and,  instantly,  all  over  town,  there  were  rumours 
of  a  German  advance — the  invaders  were  drawing  near, 
the  Uhlans  were  seen  at  this  place  and  that! 

The  hours  wore  away.  One  got  somehow  through  the 
day,  the  spirits  declining  toward  evening  with  the 
sun,  for  then  the  rumors  began  to  pour  into  the  Lega- 
tion, brought  by  the  fugitives  who  came  for  consolation, 
or  by  the  timorous  who  came  for  encouragement  or  in- 
formation. They  whispered  more  and  more  of  awful 
atrocities,  hideous  deeds,  committed  near  Tirlemont; 
the  Germans  were  said  to  have  sacked  the  peasants' 
houses,  killed  the  men,  thrust  bayonets  through  the 

101 


BELGIUM 

breasts  of  girls,  hung  a  Belgian  soldier  up  by  the  thumbs. 
I  went  to  bed  that  night  feeling  like  the  sad  Pestalozzi. 

At  the  English  church  that  last  Sunday  morning 
the  organ  was  not  in  coromission.  The  organist  played 
on  a  little  harmonium  and  the  choir  broke  down  every 
few  minutes,  but  services  were  never  held  under  cir- 
cumstances more  impressive.  The  atmosphere  was  heavy 
with  the  emotions  of  the  hour.  "Give  peace  in  our  time, 
O  Lord!"  read  the  little  curate,  and  there  was  an  uni- 
sonant  sigh.  At  the  prayer  for  King  George  V  there 
was  a  pregnant  silence;  when  the  curate  added,  "and 
for  Albert,  King  of  the  Belgians,"  he  paused,  the  silence 
deepened;  and  then,  as  he  went  on,  "and  for  Thy  serv- 
ant, the  President  of  the  United  States  of  America," 
one  felt — ^why  not  avow  it  even  if  one  is  Anglo- 
Saxon? — bne  felt  close  to  tears.  The  curate,  instead  of 
a  sermon  of  his  own  read,  rather  wisely,  I  thought — a 
published  sermon  by  the  Bishop.  It  may  have  suffered 
an  attenuating  process  in  the  transmission,  but  there 
was  one  good  sentence  in  it,  not  by  the  curate,  nor 
even  by  the  Bishop,  but  by  Lord  Kitchener,  who  had 
said  to  his  men  after  the  South  African  campaign: 
"You  have  tasted  the  salt  of  life,  and  you  will  not  for- 
get its  flavour." 

There  are  times,  there  are  certain  moments  in  life, 
when  the  old  prayers,  the  old  hymns,  suddenly  acquire 
a  new  meaning  and  afford  a  consolation  that  no  other 
words  can  give.  What  floods  of  memory  out  of  far- 
off  youth,  out  of  that  far-off  land!  The  mentality  of 
our  race  is  formed,  our  very  being  is  saturated,  with 
the  literature  of  the  King  James  version  of  the  Eng- 
lish Bible,  of  the  prayer  book,  and  of  Shakespeare.  The 
intellectual    processes    and    the    mode    of    instinctive 

102 


ENGLISH  AND  AMERICAN 

thought  and  impressions  of  thousands  who  could  not 
cite  you  a  line  out  of  any  one  of  them,  are  all  due  to 
those  three  collections  out  of  the  golden  age  of  Eng- 
lish literature.  It  is  that  which  singles  out  our  race 
from  all  others  and  makes  us  different ;  the  French  have 
Moliere  and  Racine  in  place  of  Shakespeare,  but  in  its 
effect  on  their  mentality  they  have,  instead  of  a  King 
James  version,  the  fables  of  La  Fontaine.  And  that 
morning  when  the  world  was  falling  asunder  all  about 
them,  it  was  this  great  common  heritage  that  drew  the 
English  and  the  Americans  in  that  congregation  some- 
how together,  so  that  as  we  came  out  of  the  church 
into  the  narrow  little  Rue  de  Stassart,  and  Sir  Francis's 
motor  rolled  up,  flying  a  little  British  flag,  and  Sir 
Francis  entered  his  limousine,  the  men  of  the  congre- 
gation uncovered  as  he  drove  away,  and  as  the  car 
came  up  flying  the  American  flag,  the  Englishmen  un- 
covered again. 


XIX 


HER   MAJESTY 


I  HAD  asked  an  audience  of  the  Queen  for  Miss  Boyle 
O'Reilly,  who  had  a  message  of  sympathy  from  Amer- 
ica, and  that  Sunday  afternoon  word  came  that  the 
Queen  would  grant  the  audience  at  4:30.  We  drove 
to  the  Palace,  not  that  day  to  the  grille  d'honneur,  but 
to  the  entrance  in  the  quiet,  shady  little  Rue  Brial- 
mont,  there  where  the  high  wall  shuts  in  the  palace 
grounds.  The  military  guard  was  on  the  qui  vive  and, 
once  admitted,  we  were  met  by  an  old  major-domo  with 
black  mutton-chop  whiskers  and  shown  up  to  a  little 
waiting-room,  where  we  were  received  by  one  of  the 
Queen's  ladies-in-waiting,  the  Countess  d'Oultremont. 
We  had  to  wait,  and  we  talked  for  a  long  time — about 
the  war,  of  course,  the  Countess  very  much  moved,  her 
eyes  filling  with  tears  every  few  minutes.  But  after 
awhile,  accompanied  by  the  good  Doctor  Le  Boeuf  who 
had  done  so  much  for  the  Red  Cross,  we  were  conducted 
down  the  long  red-carpeted  corridor  to  the  Queen's 
private  apartments,  and  shown  into  the  little  blue  draw- 
ing-room. And  presently  the  Queen  entered.  She  wore 
a  simple  blue  gown  with  transparent  sleeves,  and  a 
white,  low,  girlish  collar;  not  a  jewel,  only  her  wedding- 
ring  on  her  hand,  and  her  hair  dressed  in  delicate  sim- 
plicity. She  was  calm  with  a  certain  gravity,  and  her 
blue  eyes  were  wistful  in  the  little  smile  that  hovered 
about  her  lips.  There  was  no  ceremony  at  this  rather 
unusual  presentation.  .  .  . 

104 


HER  MAJESTY 

We  were  walking  down  the  long  state  apartments 
with  their  glittering  chandeliers,  all  vastly  different 
then  from  their  inspect  when  last  I  had  seen  them, 
thronged  with  men  in  brilliant  uniforms  at  a  court  ball. 
They  were  filled  that  day  with  long  lines  of  hospital 
cots,  the  white  coverlets  already  laid  back — waiting 
for  the  wounded.  At  the  foot  of  each  cot  a  little  Bel- 
gian flag  was  fastened. 

"The  children  put  them  there,"  said  the  Queen. 

Up  and  down  through  these  long  apartments  we 
paced,  in  that  model  hospital  into  which,  all  within 
eight  days,  the  Queen  had  transformed  her  palace. 
Gone  the  old  stateliness  and  luxury;  nothing  now  but 
those  white  cots,  operating-rooms,  tables  with  glass  tops, 
white  porcelain  utensils,  even  an  X-ray  apparatus — with 
all  its  sinister  implications.  Now  and  then  a  nurse 
would  appear,  dropping  a  curtsy  as  the  Queen  passed. 

In  our  tour  we  found  ourselves  in  one  of  the  en- 
trances facing  the  park. 

"The  diplomatic  entrance,"  said  the  Queen  with  a 
sad  smile,  "all  closed  now!" 

Back  up  the  grand  staircase  then,  and  at  the  door 
of  the  Queen's  apartments  she  withdrew,  pausing  as 
the  door  closed  behind  her  to  turn  and  make  a  little  ges- 
ture of  farewell.  It  was  to  be  nearly  three  years  be- 
fore I  saw  Her  Majesty  again. 

It  must  have  been  that  same  day  that  I  had  the  tele- 
gram from  London  announcing  that  two  hundred  Amer- 
ican newspaper  correspondents  were  about  to  descend 
upon  us  in  force !  I  went  at  once  to  the  Foreign  Office 
to  deliver  the  ultimatum  announcing  this  latest  inva- 
sion, and  to  ask  the  Count  d'Ursel  to  prepare  a  douche 
chaude,  and  not  a  douche  froide,  for  them.    The  cor- 

105 


BELGIUM 

respondents  arrived  on  Monday  morning,  not  two  hun- 
dred, but  two — Richard  Harding  Davis  and  Gerald 
Morgan.  I  went  with  them  to  the  Foreign  Office  and 
presented  them  to  the  Baron  van  der  Elst,  and  then 
we  drove  to  the  old  Gendarmerie  Nationale  in  the  Bou- 
levard de  Waterloo,  for  their  laisser- passers  and  bras- 
sards. The  scene  was  one  that  might  have  marked  the 
French  Revolution.  The  Gendarmerie  is  a  great  white 
block  of  a  building,  simple  and  severe,  and  French  in 
aspect.  The  great  court  yard  was  crowded  with  wag- 
ons and  horses  and  anxious  people,  and  around  a  deal 
table  sat  soldiers,  wearing  the  little  honnete  de  police, 
with  its  gay  tassel  dangling  down  on  the  forehead. 
There  were  bottles  of  ink  and  bottles  of  paste — and 
there  should  have  been  bottles  of  wine  to  make  the  scene 
wholly  and  satisfyingly  revolutionary.  We  sat  there 
for  a  long  time  in  the  sunlight  while  Davis  and  Mor- 
gan were  given  their  passports  and  brassards,  and  then, 
in  a  great  yellow  motor  car,  they  went  away  out  past 
the  Porte  de  Hal  on  the  road  to  Louvain.  Gibson  had 
gone  on  a  similar  expedition  with  Frederick  Palmer, 
already  on  the  ground,  to  see  the  sights  of  war. 

I  was  very  tired,  and  after  luncheon  I  went  up  to 
my  chamber  and  stretched  myself  out  on  a  chaise-longue 
to  rest,  but  no  sooner  had  I  settled  myself  than  Joseph 
knocked  and,  coming  in,  handed  me  a  message.  It  was 
from  the  Foreign  Office,  informing  me  that  the  Gov- 
ernment was  going  to  Antwerp  that  night  and  that 
trains  had  been  provided  for  the  diplomatic  corps.  No 
more  chaise-longue  after  that!  I  went  down  stairs  and 
telephoned  to  Villalobar;  he  came  over  and  again  we 
discussed  the  situation,  deciding  to  stay  at  all  events, 
and  to  act  in  harmony  and  concert. 

106 


HER  MAJESTY 

Davis  came  back  to  town  that  night,  having  gone 
as  far  as  Wavre,  there  to  be  turned  back  by  the  Bel- 
gians. He  had  seen  no  Germans  but  had  his  first  sight 
of  the  smart  Belgian  cavalry;  it  was  only  a  glimpse — 
the  curtains  had  parted  for  an  instant  and  then  were 
drawn  again  across  the  stage  that  was  being  set  for 
the  mighty  tragedy.  And  that  night  came  John  Mc- 
Cutcheon,  Irvin  Cobb,  and  Arno  Dorch.  We  could  talk 
of  other  days  and  for  awhile  forget  the  stealthy  ap- 
proach of  the  Germans  and  the  departure  for  Antwerp, 
until  a  note  came  from  Count  Clary  asking  me  to  take 
over  the  Austrian  Legation  immediately. 

Thus,  one  by  one  events  moved  in  their  fatal  proces- 
sion there  in  Brussels,  and  we  waited;  and  just  as  I 
was  going  to  bed,  at  11:30,  Villalobar  called  up  on 
the  telephone  to  say  that  the  Queen  and  Government 
had  left  for  Antwerp. 


XX 

THE   GOVERNMENT   LEAVES 

The  retirement  of  the  Government  within  the  forti- 
fied place  of  Antwerp,  while  understood  and  calmly 
accepted  by  the  population  of  Brussels,  nevertheless 
had  that  depressing  effect  which  such  an  event  can  not 
fail  to  produce.  The  event  was  almost  casually  an- 
nounced in  the  newspapers  of  Tuesday,  the  eighteenth, 
and  its  importance  minimized.  The  impression  that  the 
fortified  place  of  Antwerp  was  impregnable  was  encour- 
aged and  strengthened  by  an  official  announcement  com- 
municated to  the  press  by  the  General  StafF.^ 

^  L'Etat  major  de  la  position  fortifiee  d'Anvers  communique  a 
la  presse  la  note  suivante : 

"Nous  sommes  autorises  a  declarer  que,  grace  a  I'activite  deployee, 
grace  au  devouement  de  nos  admirables  troupes,  formees  pour  la 
plupart,  de  soldats  appartenant  aux  anciennes  classes  rappelees, 
Anvers  Attaque  Serait  Imprenable. 

The  Government  issued  the  following  note: 

"Le  Gouvernement  part  pour  Anvers.  Ce  n'est  pas  que  les  evene- 
ments  soient  plus  graves  qu'ils  ne  I'ont  ete  jusqu'ici.  Nous  enregis- 
trons  au  contraire  un  nouveau  succes  de  nos  troupes  secondees  par 
la  cavalerie  fran9aise.  Mais  comme  il  est  necessaire  que  le  trans- 
fert  se  fasse  normalement  et  qu'il  n'y  ait  pas  la  moindre  interruption 
dans  I'exercice  de  la  souverainete,  le  gouvernement  a  estime  qu'il 
6tait  preferable  de  commencer  le  transfert  des  services  des  difFerents 
ministeres.  Alors  que  leurs  families  resteront  dans  la  capitale, 
certains  ministres  vont  done  resider  a  Anvers  oii  les  services  de  la 
guerre  seront  mieux  a  leur  place  pendant  que  I'armee  est  en  cam- 
pagne." 

108 


THE  GOVERNMENT  LEAVES 

All  that  morning,  in  the  lovely  miracle  of  that  per- 
sistent sunlight,  I  drove  about  town  with  my  old  friends 
among  the  correspondents,  going  to  the  Grand'  Place 
the  charm  of  which  could  recall  to  John  McCutcheon 
those  days  so  long  before  when  he  and  George  Ade 
made  their  first  trip  to  Europe,  and  Ade  wrote  those 
bright  studies  illustrated  by  McCutcheon's  sketches,  and 
published  in  the  old  Chicago  News  as  "Stories  of  the 
Streets  and  of  the  Town."  We  went  around  to  see  the 
Manneken  and  so  on  through  the  narrow,  charming 
streets,  invested  with  a  greater  charm  perhaps  because 
of  the  premonition  of  change. 

We  drove  out  the  Avenue  Louise,  that  those  who  did 
not  know  it  might  see  the  lovely  Bois  de  la  Cambre. 
And  there,  at  the  head  of  the  broad  avenue,  where  it 
widens  to  from  the  entrance  to  the  noble  park,  we  saw 
a  scene  that  was  to  preoccupy  my  thoughts  for  long 
anxious  hours.  A  strip  of  paving  extending  across 
the  avenue  was  torn  up  and  a  trench  had  been  dug, 
hardly  wide  enough  or  deep  enough  for  a  gas-main — 
the  earth  and  the  paving  stones  that  had  been  removed 
were  heaped  along  the  edge,  and  before  this  slightest  of 
barricades  barbed  wire  was  loosely  strung.  And,  stand- 
ing knee-deep  in  the  trench,  was  a  company  of  the  Garde 
Civique,  insouciant,  smiling — waiting  for  the  advance  of 
the  German  Army. 

They  stood  there,  those  untrained  boys  and  young 
men — clerks,  students,  petits  bourgeois — in  their  impro- 
vised uniforms,  bowler  hats  decorated  with  cords  and 
nodding  tassels ;  armed,  to  be  sure,  with  rifles,  but  with 
no  more  training  than  that  they  had  received  on  Sunday 
afternoon  marches  through  the  pleasant  Foretj  or  a 
parade  on  some  fete  day — that  rudimentary  organiza- 

109 


BELGIUM 

tion,  that  city  guard,  all  that  was  left  of  the  Burger- 
wacht  of  olden  time,  the  stock  butt  of  Brussels  wit,  the 
standing  joke  of  music  halls  and  revues;  sternly  coura- 
geous, no  doubt,  fired  with  the  best  patriotic  impulses 
and  filled  with  the  spirit  of  the  stout  burger  of  the  old 
free  cities,  but  only  a  welcome  incentive  and  excuse  to 
the  grey  oncoming  hordes.  It  required  no  very  lively 
imagination  to  picture  the  scene  that  would  ensue  if  a 
column  of  German  soldiers  should  debouch  out  of  the 
shades  of  the  stately  Bois — one  whiff  of  mitraille^  one 
volley,  and  lovely  Brussels  doomed! 

That  afternoon  Villalobar  and  I  agreed  that  as  a 
diplomatic  courtesy  we  should  call  on  Burgomaster 
Max,  the  highest  authority  then  left  in  Brussels.  We 
went  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  where  all  was  confusion, 
and  were  asked  if  the  Burgomaster  might  receive  us  in 
la  Salle  de  Garde  that  is.  Police  Headquarters,  an  office 
that  wore  the  air  and  had  the  atmosphere  of  all  police 
stations  the  world  over.  M.  Max,  smiling,  calm,  and 
master  of  himself,  carefully  dressed  as  usual,  with  the 
alert  air  to  which  his  stiff  upstanding  hair,  great  mous- 
taches en  croc,  and  pointed  beard  somehow  contributed, 
came  down  and  received  our  visit. 

But  we  came  away  somewhat  depressed,  not  by  any- 
thing that  the  Burgomaster  had  said,  but  by  our  pre- 
science of  what  was  impending;  for  those  barricades 
at  the  entrance  of  the  Bois,  those  Gardes  Civiques  so 
ridiculously  inadequate,  were  ever  in  my  mind.  I  asked 
the  Marquis  to  go  with  me  to  the  Bois ;  I  wished  to  show 
them  to  him;  we  drove  out  the  avenue — and  there  were 
the  Gardes  Civiques  in  their  little  trench.  They  halted 
us  at  the  entrance  to  the  Bois  with  as  much  martial 
importance  as  though  they  had  been  Life  Guards  guard- 

110 


THE  GOVERNMENT  LEAVES 

ing  the  person  of  an  Emperor,  but  after  scrutinizing  our 
passes  they  let  us  go  on,  and  we  made  the  circuit  of 
the  lovely  park. 

There  is  always  something  to  laugh  at  in  life,  even 
if  it  is  only  to  keep  from  weeping,  as  Figaro  said, 
and,  depressed  as  we  were  by  the  not  wholly  reassuring 
spectacle  of  that  pitiable  defense,  as  we  came  away  and 
drove  down  the  avenue  in  the  early  evening  there  was 
a  sardonic  smile  on  the  handsome  Spanish  countenance 
of  the  Marquis  of  Villalobar. 


XXI 

THE   TEENCHES   AT   THE   BOIS 

And  now  it  is  Wednesday,  the  nineteenth  of  August, 
a  day  of  terrible  tension,  of  extreme  anxiety.  Over  the 
city  a  dreadful  menace  hangs,  the  atmosphere  is  charged 
with  portent,  and  every  one  is  depressed.  It  is  preter- 
naturally  still.  The  sun  glitters  on  the  white  f a9ades  of 
the  houses,  one  by  one  the  Belgian  flags  are  taken  in,  and 
the  shutters  put  up  at  the  windows. 

The  Belgian  General  Staff  has  fallen  back  from 
Louvain  to  Malines.  All  day  long  crowds  of  peasants, 
in  carts  and  on  foot,  pour  into  town  from  the  east — a 
continuous  stream  with  stolid,  patient,  sad  faces,  flee- 
ing before  the  German  advance. 

A  refugee  lawyer  who  had  escaped  with  his  family 
from  Francorchamps,  near  Malmeny,  came  into  the  Le- 
gation to  see  de  Leval,  and  told  of  the  horrors  that  were 
being  committed  in  Luxembourg — villages  burned, 
peasants  shot  down,  massacres  and  unspeakable  out- 
rages. A  troop  of  Belgian  cavalry  passed  down  the 
Rue  de  Treves,  weary,  haggard  men,  unkempt,  with 
grimy  faces,  their  uniforms  grey  with  dust;, a  picture 
by  Detaille  there  in  the  old  Quartier  Leopold. 

And  yet  there  was  that  strange  phenomenon  always 
to  be  observed  in  times  of  crises,  the  persistence  with 
which  life  goes  on  in  its  normal  and  usual  sequences; 
for  that  morning  my  wife  and  I  went  with  Madame 
Carton  de  Wiart,  the  wife  of  the  Minister  of  Justice, 
to  see  the  soup  kitchens  that  are  maintained  by  the 

112 


THE  TRENCHES  AT  THE  BOIS 

school  system  of  Brussels  for  the  children  of  the  poor. 

Madame  Carton  de  Wiart  had  not  gone  with  her  hus- 
band to  Antwerp  but  had  remained  behind  with  her 
children,  living  on  in  the  ministry  in  the  Rue  de  la  Loi, 
and  was  devoting  herself,  as  ever,  to  charity.  We 
went  to  a  soupe  in  the  poor  quarter  near  the  Quai  au 
Bois-a-Bruler,  the  little  ones  marching  in  while  we  were 
there,  bowing  to  us  as  they  passed,  to  seat  themselves 
at  the  long  low  tables  to  eat  their  soup  and  their  petits 
pains  J  in  the  infinite  pathos  that  attaches  to  childhood, 
especially  to  the  childhood  of  the  poor.  Two  little 
girls  had  been  fighting  as  we  entered  and  the  defeated 
one  stood  leaning  against  a  wall,  hiding  her  face  in  her 
arms  as  she  sobbed  bitterly — her  companions,  with  the 
savage  stoicism  of  children,  taking  no  notice  of  her 
pain. 

When  I  got  back  to  the  Legation  I  found  Villalobar 
there,  and  very  grave,  with  news  that  the  Germans 
were  at  hand.  He  had  no  sooner  gone  than  Sir  Fran- 
cis Villiers  came,  formally  to  turn  over  his  Legation. 
He  wore  the  British  calm — this  distinguished  gentle- 
man, whose  hair  was  grown  white  in  his  King's  service. 

"A  most  frightful  bore!"  was  his  only  comment  on 
the  impending  demenagement. 

There  was  little  to  do  since  his  archives  were  already 
in  my  possession.  We  discussed  the  last  details,  decid- 
ing that  between  us  no  proces-verhal  was  necessary.  He 
had  made  all  his  arrangements  for  departure. 

"I  shall  lunch  quietly,"  he  said,  "and  motor  over  to 
Antwerp  this  afternoon." 

There  was  no  more  to  say.  I  disliked  to  see  him  go. 
We  had  been  good  friends.  .  .  .  When  I  was  new  at 
the  post  Sir  Francis  showed  me  many  delicate  atten- 

113 


BELGIUM 

tions,  rendered  me  many  kindly  services.  I  had  ^own 
to  be  fond  of  him  and  of  his  whole  family.  Sir  Francis 
arose  and  held  out  his  hand. 

"I  trust  that  it  is  only  au  revoir/'  he  said. 

We  shook  hands,  bowed,  and  he  went  away. 

After  him  came  McCutcheon  and  Cobb,  and  with 
them  Will  Irwin,  the  latest  correspondent  to  arrive. 
They  were  eager  to  get  to  the  front. 

"You  have  only  to  wait  a  few  hours,"  I  said,  "and 
the  front  will  come  to  you.'* 

But  they  were  impatient;  they  started  for  Louvain, 
promising  to  be  back  to  dine  with  me  that  night. 

We  were  all  rather  grave  at  luncheon,  but  we  tried 
not  to  let  the  mothers  see.  I  could  not  get  those  Gardes 
Civiques  and  their  little  trenches  on  the  Avenue  Louise 
and  in  the  Avenue  de  Tervueren  out  of  my  mind. 

Villalobar  came  at  three  o'clock  and  I  talked  it  over 
with  him;  something  must  be  done.  And  so  we  drove 
over  to  the  Ministere  de  la  Guerre,  deserted  now  by 
Baron  de  Broqueville  and  occupied  by  Lieutenant- Gen- 
eral Clootens,  commanding  the  'Gardes  Civiques,  a  kind 
of  Military  Governor,  or  I  know  not  what — at  any  rate, 
the  ranking  military  authority  left  in  the  city. 

We  were  admitted  at  once  into  his  presence;  he  was 
in  M.  de  Broqueville's  cabinet,  at  M.  de  Broqueville's 
desk  and  had  an  aide  with  him.  He  received  us  stand- 
ing, and  we  remained  standing  throughout  the  inter- 
view. The  General  was  a  big  man,  with  dark  bronze 
skin  and  heavy  mustaches.  His  capote,  kepi,  and  sword 
lay  on  a  divan  near  by,  all  ready.  His  aide  hovered 
solicitously  near  him. 

We  told  him  that  we  had  come  to  pay  our  respects, 
and  he  bowed  like  a  soldier  and  thanked  us  in  his  heavy 

114 


THE  TRENCHES  AT  THE  BOIS 

voice.  Then,  as  delicately  as  we  could,  we  approached 
the  question  of  the  defense  of  the  city,  feeling  our  way 
to  a  footing  that  would  permit  us  to  give  our  counsel  to 
attempt  nothing  with  the  means  at  his  command. 

"J'ai  bien  peu  d'hommes  pour  la  defense  de  la  ville" 
he  said  finally. 

We  rushed  into  the  opening,  recalling  to  him  that 
as  an  open  city  Brussels  could  not,  under  the  laws  of 
war,  be  bombarded,  unless  a  defense  were  attempted. 

But  the  General  drew  himself  up  and  said: 

"Je  ferai  mon  devoir!  Je  defendrai  la  ville  jusquau 
houtr 

After  leaving  the  General  we  sat  there  in  the  motor 
in  the  Rue  de  la  Loi,  talked  over  the  situation,  and  de- 
termined to  go  to  M.  Max,  the  Burgomaster;  he  was 
a  highly  intelligent  and  reasonable  man;  there  lay  the 
last  and  only  hope.  The  old  huissier  showed  us  gravely 
to  the  chambers  of  the  Burgomaster;  the  last  time  I 
had  been  in  that  stately  apartment  was  when  the  Chi- 
nese Ambassador  and  his  suite  were  signing  the  Golden 
Book  of  the  City.    Other  guests  expected  now ! 

M.  Max,  smiling  as  ever  and,  as  always,  very  alert, 
smart  in  attire  and  elegant  in  manner,  arose  from  his 
imposing  desk,  where  he  had  been  studying  some  paper. 

'^La  situation  est  eoctremement  grave!"  he  said,  in  a 
tone  that  accorded  well  with  the  facts. 

We  sat  down  in  the  two  chairs  that  had  been  placed 
for  us.  He  told  us  that  the  Germans  were  moving  on 
the  city,  and  that  he  had  made  a  resolution  to  defend 
it.  We  asked  him  what  he  intended  to  defend  it  with, 
and  he  said,  of  course,  with  the  Garde  Civique.  I  per- 
mitted myself  the  liberty  of  pointing  out  to  him  the  fu- 
tility of  such  a  course,  saying  that  as  an  open  city  Brus- 

115 


BELGIUM 

sels  was  protected  from  assault  or  bombardment  by 
the  conventions  and  rules  of  war,  but  that  the  firing 
of  a  single  shot  in  defense  would  take  it  out  of  this 
category,  and  that,  wholly  insufficient  as  the  Garde  Ci- 
vique  was,  that  would  mean  not  only  the  sacrifice  of 
their  lives  but  the  lives  of  citizens  as  well,  and  the  de- 
struction of  the  beautiful  monuments  of  the  city.  The 
Marquis  added  his  representations  to  mine  and  we  made 
them  as  strongly  as  we  could,  Villalobar  and  I  speaking 
alternately — sometimes — I  fear,  in  concert.  M.  Max  lis- 
tened sympathetically,  acquiescing  in  all  that  we  said; 
he  knew  it  all,  indeed,  as  well  as  we,  but  he  sighed, 
shrugged  his  shoulders,  and  raised  both  hands  in  a  ges- 
ture of  despair. 

"^C'est  une  question  d'honneur/'  he  said. 

My  hopes  fell,  but  we  repeated  our  arguments. 

I  asked  him  to  consider  another  interest  that  seemed 
to  be  involved.  Brussels,  like  all  beautiful  and  historical 
cities,  is  in  essence  one  of  the  assets  of  civilization  and 
I  spoke  of  its  works  of  art,  and  of  how  the  whole  world 
was  interested  in  them  and  of  those  who,  in  Europe,  in 
.America,  everywhere,  either  had  seen  them  or  hoped  to 
see  them.  Thus  in  a  certain  sensQ  we  seemed  to  speak 
for  the  interests  of  humanity.  I  felt  that  the  words  im- 
pressed him.  The  Marquis  gave  his  assent,  and  the 
Burgomaster  listened  sympathetically,  but  still  held  to 
his  resolve  and  said : 

''Que  voulez-vous  que  je  fosse?'' 

We  pressed  the  point  but  received  no  formal  assur- 
ance that  he  would  do  what  we  suggested.  He  said  it 
had  been  decided  to  defend  the  city  as  far  as  the  inner 
boulevards,  and  I  smiled,  thinking  of  those  Gardes  Ci- 
viques ;  their  defense  could  not  last  as  far  as  the  ring  of 

116 


THE  TRENCHES  AT  THE  BOIS 

inner  boulevards  which  enclose  the  old  city.  Both  Vil- 
lalobar's  and  my  Legation  would  be  outside  that 
charmed  circle.  I  thought  of  that,  and  M.  Max  evi- 
dently thought  of  it  at  the  same  moment,  for  he  said 
he  would  place  at  our  disposal  houses  within  these  boule- 
vards.   Small  comfort  in  that! 

"Non,  m^rci,"  I  answered  at  once,  "je  resterai  dans 
ma  Legation/* 

''Et  moi  aussi"  said  Villalobar. 

There  was  nothing  more  to  say  but  we  could  not 
leave  without  repeating  what  we  had  said,  without  re- 
newing again  our  earnest  entreaties. 

While  we  were  talking,  JNIonsieur  Jacquemain,  one  of 
the  echevins,  came  into  the  room,  very  dark  and  grave 
and  worried,  and  asked  M.  Max  solicitously  if  there 
was  anything  more  he  could  do  for  him,  and  M.  Max 
said,  "No,"  and  told  him  to  go.  They  were  intimate 
friends,  those  two,  and  M.  Jacquemain's  devotion  and 
loyalty  to  his  chief  were  good  to  see  in  a  world  where 
that  kind  of  loyalty  is  rare. 

The  Burgomaster  thanked  us  again  and  said  that  he 
would  consider  our  words.  We  asked  him  if  he  was  go- 
ing home. 

"Non/'  he  said,  "je  dormirai  id.  Je  ne  quitterai  pas 
mon  Hotel  de  Ville/' 

He  spoke  the  "mon"  affectionately,  in  the  spirit  of 
the  old  free  cities,  and  we  came  away  very  sober,  not 
much  reassured  by  the  result  of  our  mission  but  drawing 
what  hopes  we  could  from  Max's  promise  to  consider 
our  words.  We  came  away,  too,  with  the  admiration 
for  a  man  who  found  himself  suddenly  in  an  excessively 
difficult  position. 

We  read  in  the  evening  newspapers : 

117 


BELGIUM 

"Lsa  grande  bataille  semhle  commencee  en  Belgique. 
Rien  riest  venu  der anger  les  plans  de  Vetat-major  ge- 
neral, au  point  de  vue  strategique.  On  nous  certifie 
quaujourd'hui  chacun  est  a  sa  place.  II  faut  faire  con- 
fiance  au  Grand  Etat  major  que  dirige  le  roi  Albert. 
D'apres  les  renseignements  recueillis  aupres  d'officiers, 
Vopinion  dans  les  hautes  spheres  est  excellente  et  la  con- 
fiance  absolue." 

I  sent  a  cablegram  to  Washington  reporting  my  re- 
fusal to  remove  the  Legation  and  announcing  that  the 
Germans  were  just  east  of  the  city.  And  then  we  sat 
down  to  await  their  coming. 


XXII 

THE   GREY   HORDES 

Very  early  on  Thursday  morning,  the  twentieth  of 
August,  a  date  that  I  am  not  likely  to  forget,  I  was 
awakened  by  loud  knocks  and,  slipping  into  my  dress- 
ing-gown, I  opened  the  door,  and  there  stood  poor  Gus- 
tave,  •weary,  haggard,  frightened,  intensely  neglige, 
looking  as  though  he  had  not  been  to  bed  at  all — as,  in- 
deed, he  had  not;  he  had  brought  his  whole  family  and 
had  given  them  Omer's  room  in  the  garage,  sitting  up 
all  night,  unknown  to  me,  faithful  soul  that  he  was,  with 
the  agent  de  police,  to  keep  watch.  The  gardes  civiques 
had  vanished  from  the  court  yard. 

Gustave  came  to  announce  the  Count  Bottaro-Costa, 
the  Italian  Minister,  whom  I  found  waiting  in  my  cabi- 
net, himself  wearing  a  haggard  air.  He  came  at  that 
early  hour  for  consultation,  and  to  bring  the  news  that 
it  had  been  decided  by  the  authorities,  on  orders  from 
the  King  at  Antwerp  and  as  a  result  of  the  advice  that 
Villalobar  and  I  had  ventured  to  give  Burgomaster  Max, 
not,  after  all,  to  offer  any  resistance.  The  Gardes  Ci- 
viques had  accordingly  been  withdrawn  and  disbanded, 
and  the  German  army  was  to  enter  the  city  during  that 
day. 

The  news  was  a  relief,  of  course,  for  which  we  could 
thank  the  King,  who  has  a  very  level  head  on  those 
broad  shoulders. 

119 


BELGIUM 

Bottaro-Costa,  however,  was  uncertain  of  our  diplo- 
matic-status and  thought  that  we  were  merely  distin- 
guished residents  of  the  capital.  I  was  not  so  much  con- 
cerned about  that  technical  point  and  advised  him  to  go 
over  and  take  counsel  of  Villalobar,  who  is  expert  in  all 
such  delicate  matters,  but  Bottaro-Costa  would  not; 
Villalobar's  Legation  was  in  the  Rue  Archimede  and 
Bottaro-Costa  said  that  if  he  went  there  he  might  never 
get  back  to  his  own  Legation  on  the  Boulevard  Bis- 
choffsheim. 

When  he  had  gone  I  went  upstairs,  and  when  Colette 
brought  my  tea,  I  told  her  not  to  be  frightened,  that 
the  entry  of  the  Germans  would  be  peaceful.  The  poor 
soul  was  relieved  but  shook  her  head  and  said,  in  the 
French  she  translated  out  of  her  Flemish  mentality: 

"Mais  c'est  tout  de  meme  triste/' 

I  told  the  honest  Gustave  too,  and  he  shook  another 
hard  Flemish  head  and  summed  up,  I  think,  in  a  phrase 
the  common  thought  of  all  Brussels  that  morning  when 
he  said  ruefully: 

"Je  pensais  que  les  Anglais  et  les  Fran^ais  allaient 
venir  nous  aider/' 

All  morning  in  ever-increasing  crowds  the  poor  peas- 
ants tramped  into  the  city,  bearing  their  pitiable  pos- 
sessions in  bags,  bundles,  some  of  them  in  Belgian  carts 
drawn  by  dogs.  And  from  my  window  I  saw  one  lone, 
dispirited,  footsore  Belgian  soldier  trudging  in  the  hot 
sun  that  beat  down  into  the  Rue  Belliard,  sweltering  in 
his  heavy  overcoat,  his  knapsack  on  his  back,  a  tin  cup 
and  an  extra  pair  of  boots  dangling  from  it,  trailing 
his  gun  and  powdered  grey  with  dust,  trudging  wearily 
along,  the  symbol  of  defeat  and  despair. 

120 


THE  GREY  HORDES 

M.  Max,  wearing  the  red  echarpe  of  the  Bourgmestre, 
with  M.  Jacquemain  the  echevin,  his  faithful  friend,  had 
gone  outside  the  city  toward  Tervueren  the  night  be- 
fore and  there,  with  the  German  general,  had  arranged 
the  details  of  the  entry  of  the  troops,  and  for  their  un- 
molested passage  through  the  city.  And  now  they  were 
to  enter  at  eleven  o'clock.  All  morning  long  we  waited. 
Villalobar  was  restlessly  in  and  out  with  such  news  as 
he  had. 

We  had  been  told  that  the  troops  would  come  in  under 
the  arch  of  the  Cinquantenaire — from  the  window  of 
my  chamber  I  could  just  see  the  quadriga  that  Leo- 
pold had  placed  there — and  march  down  the  Rue  de  la 
Loi,  the  long  avenue  that  stretched  away  from  the 
triumphal  arch,  in  the  crude  glare  of  the  sun,  stark, 
empty,  unreal. 

At  luncheon  we  discussed  the  propriety  of  my  going 
out  to  see  the  army  pass  through;  I  did  not  like  to 
miss  the  spectacle,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  I  had  a  feel- 
ing that  it  might  be  indelicate  in  me  to  witness  the 
humiliation  of  the  proud  city.  I  asked  the  ladies  not 
to  leave  the  Legation ;  one  could  never  know  what  might 
happen.  After  luncheon  we  went  out  on  the  balcony; 
one  by  one  the  bright  Belgian  flags  were  coming  down 
from  the  white  fa9ades  along  the  Rue  Belliard,  where 
they  had  flamed  in  the  sun  for  the  last  fortnight,  and 
only  on  the  Brazilian,  the  Chilian  and  the  American 
Legations  were  flags  left  flying.  The  persiennes  were 
drawn  at  all  the  windows;  the  old  Quartier  Leopold 
looked  like  a  city  of  the  dead. 

Then  of  a  sudden  I  saw  Villalobar's  car  coming  down 
the  Rue  de  Treves,  his  chauflFeur  in  his  red-and-green 

121 


BELGIUM 

livery,  his  red  and  yellow  flag  flying,  and  I  ran  down 
to  meet  him,  seizing  my  hat  and  stick  as  I  went.  The 
Marquis  was  as  excited  as  a  boy. 

"Come  on!"  he  cried,  and  I  went,  Gibson  and  de  Le- 
val  following  in  our  car.  We  drove  over  to  the  Italian 
Legation,  in  the  Boulevard  Bischoff  sheim.  The  boule- 
vard was  lined  with  crowds,  waiting  under  the  elm 
trees,  out  of  the  sun.  The  police  hourgeoise,  composed 
of  citizens  who  had  been  sworn  in  to  aid  in  keeping 
order,  were  sauntering  about,  wearing  their  white  bras- 
sards. 

Bottaro-Costa,  a  day  or  so  before,  much  to  our  regret, 
had  been  superseded  at  that  post  by  another  Minister 
who  had  not  yet  arrived,  and  was  about  to  leave  Brus- 
sels. His  Legation  was  dismantled  and  the  halls  filled 
with  packing-cases,  but  the  Countess  had  retained  one 
salon,  and  she  received  us  there. 

There,  then,  in  the  bow  windows  overlooking  the  bou- 
levard, chatting  the  while,  we  waited  until  Villalobar 
and  Bottaro-Costa  grew  weary  and  impatient  and  went 
out  with  Carton  de  Wiart,  the  Spanish  Consul,  a  cousin 
of  the  Belgian  Minister  of  Justice;  I  remained  with  the 
Countess. 

And  then  standing  by  the  window,  suddenly  we  had 
our  first  view  of  the  German  troops.  Without  music 
or  fife,  or  drums  or  flag,  a  company  of  infantry  came 
down  the  boulevard;  they  were  all  in  grey — a  sinister, 
lurid-greenish  grey — even  to  the  helmet-covers  they 
wore,  and  they  were  in  heavy  marching  order.  They 
swung  along  somewhat  wearily  close  to  the  allee  des 
pietons  at  the  corner  where  they  were  to  turn  down 
into  the  Boulevard  du  Jardin  Botanique.     Two  of  the 

122 


THE  GREY  HORDES 

men  fell  out  of  line,  took  their  post  at  the  corner,  and 
lowered  their  rifles.  One  of  them  rested  his  foot  in  the 
sling  of  his  rifle;  the  other  drew  a  box  of  cigarettes 
from  his  tunic,  proffered  it  to  his  comrade,  fumbled  for 
a  match,  then  asked  a  light  from  a  Belgian  standing 
near.  The  Belgian  gave  it  to  him  with  Belgian  kind- 
ness. A  little  knot  of  men  stared  at  them.  And  that 
was  all.    It  did  not  seem  so  bad. 

*'Poor  fellows!"  sighed  the  Countess. 

I  assumed  that  the  poor  fellows  had  fallen  out  to  mark 
the  way  for  those  who  were  to  follow,  though  the  route 
was  already  marked  by  arrows  painted  on  boards  that 
had  been  fixed  to  the  trees.  We  waited,  but  no  more 
came. 

Then  Bottaro-Costa  came  running  up  and  said  they 
were  going  by  another  route.  We  bade  the  Countess 
good-bye — she  refused  to  accompany  us — rushed  down, 
and  Bottaro-Costa,  Villalobar,  and  I  entered  Villalo- 
bar's  car  and  whirled  away  to  the  Rue  Royale,  where  the 
chauff^eur  said  the  troops  were  passing.  But  no  troops 
were  there,  and  finding  ourselves  in  the  Rue  de  Ligne, 
we  heard  the  steady  drumming  of  horses'  hoofs,  ex- 
cited crowds  were  swaying  this  way  and  that,  rushing 
uncertainly  hither  and  there;  finally  they  took  a  more 
stable  course,  in  the  direction  of  the  hoof-beats.  We 
drove  then  to  Ste.-Gudule  and,  at  Villalobar's  insistence, 
out  onto  the  terrace  of  the  old  church  itself,  overlook- 
ing the  little  Place  du  Par  vis.  And  there,  between  the 
hedges  of  the  silent  crowds  packed  along  the  sidewalks, 
slowly  descending  the  Rue  Ste.-Gudule  from  the  Treu- 
renberg  and  turning  into  the  Rue  de  la  Montague,  which 
twisted  away  to  our  left,  riding  in  column  of  twos, 
in  the  same  grey  uniforms,  their  black-and-white  pen- 

123 


BELGIUM 

nants  fluttering  from  their  lances,  was  a  squadron  of 
German  hussars.  And  as  they  rode  they  chanted  in 
rude  chorus:  "Heil  Dir  im  Siegeskranz." 

It  was  very  still;  the  crowds  sullen  and  silent,  there 
in  the  glitter  of  the  sunlight — the  horses'  hoofs  clattering 
on  the  stones  of  the  uneven  pavement,  the  lances  sway- 
ing, the  pennants  fluttering  and  that  deep-throated 
chant,  to  the  tune  that  we  know  as  "America"  and  the 
British  as  "God  Save  the  King" — and  over  us  the 
grey  fa9ades  of  the  stately  old  church.  The  scene  had 
the  aspect  of  medievalism;  something  terrible  too,  that 
almost  savage  chant  and  those  grey  horsemen  pouring 
down  out  of  the  Middle  Ages  into  modern  civilization. 

Villalobar  turned  and  looked  at  me. 

"We'll  remember  this  scene,"  he  said. 

"And  think  where  we  are!"  said  Bottaro-Costa,  glanc- 
ing up  at  the  two  lofty  towers  of  Ste.-Gudule  behind 
us,  looking  down,  as  calmly  as  they  had  looked  for  seven 
centuries,  on  a  scene  that  was  not,  after  all  new  to  them. 
They  had  seen  Frenchmen  and  Austrian^  and  Spaniards 
riding  thus,  singing  their  song  of  conquest. 

The  columns  halted,  the  chanting  ceased ;  the  last  two 
troopers  promptly  turned  their  horses  around.  No  rear 
attacks !  Then  after  a  moment  they  moved  again,  tak- 
ing up  their  savage  hymn,  and,  still  singing  in  those 
hoarse  gutturals,  wound  down  and  away  and  out  of  sight 
behind  the  walls,  the  tiles  and  the  chimney-pots,  where 
the  Rue  Ste.-Gudule  turns  into  the  Rue  de  la  Montague, 
and  so  to  the  Grand'  Place.  We  thought  we  had  seen 
it  all,  and  turned  away  and  drove  back  to  the  Italian 
Legation. 

And  as  we  turned  into  the  Boulevard  Bischofl*sheim 
there  was  the  German  army.     All  that  we  had  seen 

124 


THE  GREY  HORDES 

was  but  an  advance  guard,  mere  videttes,  for  there  up 
and  down  the  boulevard  under  the  spreading  branches 
of  the  trees,  as  far  as  we  could  see,  were  undulating, 
glinting  fields  of  bayonets  and  a  mighty  grey,  grim 
horde,  a  thing  of  steel,  that  came  thundering  on  with 
shrill  fifes  and  throbbing  drums  and  clanging  cymbals, 
nervous  horses  and  lumbering  guns  and  wild  songs. 

And  this  was  Germany !  Not  the  stolid,  good-natured, 
smiling  German  of  the  glass  of  beer  and  tasseled  pipe, 
Vwhiling  away  a  Sunday  afternoon  in  his  peaceful  beer- 
garden,  while  a  band  played  Strauss  waltzes,  not  the 
sentimentality  of  the  blue  flowers  and  moonlight  on 
the  castled  Rhine,  not  the  poetry  of  Goethe  and  Schil- 
ler, not  the  insipid  sweet  strains  of  Mendelssohn  nor 
the  profound  harmonies  of  Wagner,  nor  the  philosophy 
of  Immanuel  Kant ;  but  this  dread  thing,  this  monstrous 
anachronism,  modern  science  yoked  to  the  chariot  of 
autocracy  and  driven  by  the  cruel  will  of  the  pagan 
world. 

We  sat  there  in  the  motor  and  stared  at  it.  No  one 
spoke  for  a  long  time.  Then,  as  under  scrutiny  masses 
disintegrate  into  their  component  elements,  we  began  *o 
note  individual  details:  the  heavy  guns  that  lurched 
by,  their  vicious  mouths  of  steel  lowered  toward  the 
ground;  officers  erect  on  their  superb  horses,  some  of 
them  thin,  of  the  Prussian  type  with  cruel  faces,  scarred 
by  duelling,  wearing  monocles  and  carrying  English 
riding  crops;  some  of  the  heavier  type,  with  rolls  of 
fat,  the  mark  of  the  beast,  as  Emerson  says,  at  the 
back  of  the  neck,  and  red,  heavy,  brutal  faces,  smoking 
cigarettes,  looking  about  over  the  heads  of  the  silent, 
awed,  saddened  crowd  with  arrogant,  insolent,  con- 
temptuous glances.     Their  equipment,  of  course,  was 

125 


BELGIUM 

perfect ;  sabres,  revolvers  in  holsters,  field-glasses,  maps 
in  a  leather  case,  with  isinglass  to  protect  them,  small 
electric  lamps  slung  about  their  necks — not  a  detail  had 
been  overlooked  in  those  provisions  of  forty-four  years. 

The  infantry  marched  in  column  of  fours  with  heavy 
methodical  German  precision — squat  Germans  for  the 
most  part,  their  trousers  untidily  thrust  in  their  heavy 
boots,  that  drummed  with  iron-shod  heels  heavily  on  the 
pavement;  an  extra  pair  of  boots  dangled  from  each 
knapsack. 

There  were  Germans  of  all  the  familiar  German 
types :  thick  necks  and  flattened  occiputs,  low  foreheads 
and  yellow  hair  shaved  closely,  like  convicts;  stolid,  in- 
different faces,  with  no  ray  of  mirth  or  humour,  but 
now  and  then  eyes  of  the  pale  blue  of  porcelain  gazing 
through  spectacles — the  familiar  student  type.  Their 
low  spiked  helmets  were  covered  with  cloth  of  that  same 
greenish-grey  of  the  uniform;  every  bit  of  metal  on  the 
uniform,  indeed,  was  covered,  and  in  most  instances  the 
numbers  on  their  shoulders  were  similarly  concealed. 
They  were  all  young  men,  strong,  with  long  backs  and 
short  stout  legs,  hard  thews  and  sinews,  and  all  individ- 
uality, all  initiative,  had  been  drilled  out  of  them;  they 
plodded  on  with  the  dumb  docility  of  fatalism,  and  their 
officers,  across  the  vast  gulf  that  militarism  places  be- 
tween officers  and  men,  were  as  contemptuous  of  them 
as  they  were  of  the  awed  crowds  along  the  sidewalks. 

Cavalry,  infantry,  and  artillery  went  by;  each  regi- 
ment of  infantry  was  supported  by  a  troop  of  cavalry 
and  followed  by  a  battery,  forming  integrally  a  unit. 
The  infantry,  trudging  along,  suddenly  whistled  to  a 
tune  that  brought  back  instantly  the  memory  of  happy 
summers  at  home — "Every  Little  Movement  Has  a 

126 


THE  GREY  HORDES 

Meaning  of  its  Own" — though  to  them,  of  course,  it  was 
"Madame  Sherry,"  heard  in  Germany;  others  sang  the 
Austrian  national  hymn  and  there  was  one  company 
that  sang  something  from  Lohengrin.  And  how  they 
sang!  Efficiency,  drill,  discipline  here  but  too  apparent, 
for  they  sang  all  the  parts  like  a  Manner chor  as  though 
they  had  been  trained — as  no  doubt  they  had. 

The  field-pieces  rumbled  by  until  we  were  weary 
of  it  all;  then  a  long  line  of  inverted  steel  pontoons, 
the  mud  of  the  Meuse  still  clinging  to  their  bottoms; 
then  the  commissariat,  cookstoves  with  fires  burning  and 
smoke  coming  from  the  short  stacks,  and  soup  sim- 
mering in  the  great  kettles;  then  regiments  of  hussars 
with  black-and-white  pennants,  and  ammunition-wag- 
ons innumerable. 

And  now  and  then,  suddenly,  far  down  the  Boulevard, 
we  would  hear  the  crash  of  the  music  of  a  military  bdnd, 
high,  shrill,  with  fierce  screaming  notes,  the  horrid  clang 
of  mammoth  brass  cymbals — not  music,  but  noise  of  a 
calculated  savagery,  to  strike  terror. 

It  became  terrible,  oppressive,  unendurable,  mon- 
strous— those  black  guns  on  grey  carriages  and  grey 
caissons;  those  field  grey  uniforms;  the  insolent  faces 
of  those  supercilious  young  officers,  scarred  in  their  silly 
duels,  wearing  monocles;  those  dull  plodding  soldiers, 
those  backs,  those  thews  and  sinews,  the  heels  of  those 
clumsy  boots  drumming  on  the  pavement.  It  was  im- 
pressive as  a  spectacle,  but  with  none  of  the  inspiring 
effect  of  martial  array ;  it  was  grim  without  any  sublim- 
ity, business-like  but  without  the  agreeable  effect  of  har- 
mony; a  very  parade  of  savagery,  in  every  one  of  its 
implications,  horrible,  appalling,  dreadful.  That  organi- 
zation of  steel,  however  disciplined  and  efficient,  was 

127 


BELGIUM 

heavy  and  sodden,  it  was  perhaps  the  chief  victim  of  its 
own  remorseless  cruelty ;  seeking  to  gain  the  whole  world 
it  had  lost  its  own  soul. 

Bottaro-Costa  grew  weary  and  went  into  his  Lega- 
tion. The  Countess  had  been  looking  at  the  spectacle 
from  the  window  of  her  salon. 

Then  Villalobar  went  away  and  I  thought  of  my  wife 
and  the  mothers  and  Miss  Larner,  and  said  to  myself 
that  if  I  were  to  hurry  they  might  yet  have  a  glimpse 
of  this  colossal  and  evil  thing.  Luckily,  I  found  my  own 
motor  down  the  Boulevard,  abandoned  by  Gibson  and 
de  Leval,  and  in  it  I  whirled  to  the  Legation  and  got 
the  excited  ladies. 

"Hurry,"  I  said,  "there  may  yet  be  time!" 

We  returned  to  the  boulevard.  It  was  perhaps  five 
o'clock.  The  German  hosts  were  still  filing  by,  and  we 
sat  in  the  motor  and  watched,  spellbound,  for  two  hours, 
while  the  grey-green  hordes  rolled  by  in  undiminished, 
seemingly  infinite  numbers. 

There  was  a  commotion  in  the  lines ;  a  horse  harnessed 
to  a  gun  had  fallen  with  the  sickening  effect  of  that 
spectacle.  An  artillery  man  leaped  from  the  caisson; 
an  officer  shouted  a  sharp  order ;  the  grey  line  debouched 
and  went  on.  The  dust  beaten  up  by  those  thousands 
of  heavy  feet  rose  and  obscured  the  sunlight,  sifted 
into  the  trees,  turning  the  green  leaves  into  grey;  it 
settled  into  the  grey  uniforms,  gave  a  grey  aspect  to  the 
atmosphere,  and  as  evening  fell  the  grey  hordes  were 
filing  by  like  grey  ghosts  in  a  grey  twilight. 

I  had  agreed  to  go  with  Villalobar  at  half-past  six 
to  the  Hotel  de  Ville ;  it  was  then  nearly  seven.  I  found 
him  waiting  for  me  at  my  Legation,  and  we  rolled  away 
around  by  the  Park  and  the  Palace,  through  the  Place 

128 


THE  GREY  HORDES 

Royale.  As  we  turned  to  descend  by  the  Rue  de  la 
Madeleine  into  the  lower  town,  our  progress  was  stayed 
by  the  crowds.  The  chauffeur  kept  his  horn  honking, 
and  then  suddenly  there  was  a  scream,  the  crowd  swayed 
right  and  left  and  scattered;  and,  looking  up,  I  saw  an 
aeroplane  hovering  directly  overhead,  and  from  it 
there  fell  a  stream  of  fire  that  broke  out  now  and  then 
in  sparks.  We  said  nothing,  but  each  knew,  of  course, 
what  the  other  was  thinking — bombs!  And  then  sud- 
denly the  long  thin  shaft  of  fire  broke  out  into  a  pretty 
burst  of  coloured  balls,  like  a  sky-rocket  on  the  Fourth 
of  July,  and  there  was  a  long,  deep  sigh  of  relief  from 
the  crowd.  What  was  it?  I  never  knew.  Some  said 
that  it  was  a  signal  to  the  army  in  the  field. 

We  drove  on  to  the  Grand'  Place,  that  square  of 
golden  beauty,  and  there  already  the  artillery  were 
parked  and  cookstoves  were  steaming  in  preparation  for 
supper;  the  soldiers  were  comfortably  settling  them- 
selves, the  horses  munching  their  provender.  The 
mounted  sentinels  at  the  entrances  saluted  as  we  entered. 

We  drove  into  the  court  yard  of  the  old  Hotel  de 
Ville  and  then  mounted  the  grand  staircase  and  went 
down  the  familiar  halls  to  the  Burgomaster's  rooms. 
Tables  were  already  set  out  covered  with  papers,  and 
at  them  German  officers  in  those  pale-bluish  grey  coats 
one  used  to  see  all  over  Germany,  were  busily  writing. 
Four  officers  clicked  their  spurs  together  and  made  the 
stiff,  punctilious  German  military  bow,  and  thus  re- 
ceived us.  We  explained  our  mission,  and  were  shown 
into  another  room,  with  more  clicking  of  spurs  and  more 
of  those  stiff  bows.  Here  two  men  seated  at  tables 
spread  with  documents  turned  to  receive  us,  but  a  short, 
stout  and  very  dusty,  rather  bristling  little  man,  giving 

129 


BELGIUM 

orders  right  and  left,  turned  and  spoke.  He  wore  rid- 
ing breeches,  but  had  taken  off  his  leather  puttees  and 
wore  only  his  tan  shoes.  He  spoke  French  with  a  Ger- 
man accent,  and  when  I  told  him  who  I  was  he  imme- 
diately said: 

"Oh  yes,  I  know,  you  were  in  charge  of  the  German 
interests." 

With  this  he  made  another  stiff  little  bow,  his  heels 
clicking  again  and  again;  he  kept  whirling  about,  in- 
deed, clicking  his  heels  as  though  bowing  to  everybody. 

We  were  shown  then  into  the  Burgomaster's  room. 
M.  Max  was  sitting  there  at  his  great  table,  where  we 
had  seen  him  only  the  evening  before;  how  long  ago  it 
seemed  I 

He  received  u  with  a  weary  smile.  Poor  man,  what 
he  had  gone  thr  ugh! 

'' Jamais"  he  said,  "je  ne  Vouhlierai  .  .  .  jusqtid  la 
fin  de  ma  vie." 

We  expressed  our  sympathy  and  then  our  apprecia- 
tion of  his  good  sense  in  withdrawing  resistance;  after 
seeing  the  army  we  had  beheld  that  afternoon — in  sheer 
efficiency  the  most  remarkable,  I  suppose,  the  world 
has  ever  known — we  shuddered  to  think  of  what  would 
have  happened  if  the  poor  little  Gardes  Civiques  had 
stood  against  it. 

M.  Max  sent  a  huissier  to  inform  the  General  of  our 
presence,  and  the  messenger  came  back  to  say  that  the 
General  was  taking  a  bath.  We  sat  down  to  wait,  and 
while  we  waited  M.  Max  told  us  of  what  he  had  gone 
through;  and  first  that  his  relations  with  the  General 
were  difficult  and  embarrassing: 

^'J'ai  refuse  de  lui  server  la  main"  he  explained. 

He  would  stay,  he  said,  in  his  Hotel  de  Ville  until  the 

130 


THE  GREY  HORDES 

end.  He  told  us  then  what  he  had  not  told  us  the  eve- 
ning before — that  all  the  preceding  day  he  had  been  in 
communication  with  the  German  army  to  the  east  of  the 
city  and  with  the  King  in  Antwerp.  The  Germans  had 
demanded  hostages,  the  Burgomaster,  the  members  of 
the  Conseil  Municipal,  twenty  notables  and  a  war  con- 
tribution of  fifty  million  francs,  to  say  nothing  of  enor- 
mous quantities  of  food  and  forage.  M.  Max  refused 
the  hostages — the  word  had  such  a  medieval  sound  that 
my  hair  almost  stood  on  end ! — held  out,  and  gained  his 
point.  But  the  levy  must  be  paid.  We  renewed  our 
compliments. 

'^J'ai  fait  mon  devoir f'  he  said  simply. 

Then  he  told  us  the  news.  The  General  Staff  had 
fallen  back  from  Malines  on  Antwerp,  and  there  the 
remnants  of  the  Belgian  army  were  to  be  gathered,  for 
"we  must  save  a  remnant  of  our  army,  there  is  no  way 
to  get  another."  And  for  three  days  the  Germans  were 
to  pass  through  Brussels. 

M.  Max  had  just  finished  these  statements  when  there 
was  announced  General  Thaddeus  von  Jarotsky,  Gen- 
eral Major  und  Kommandant  der  16th  Infantry  Bri- 
gade. 

He  proved  to  be  the  same  important  little  man  who 
received  me  outside,  now  transformed  by  a  bath  and 
toilet,  bald  head  shining,  short  grey  moustache  bristling, 
blue  eyes  alert,  wearing  the  same  blue  grey  coat,  on  the 
breast  of  which  was  the  bar  of  the  coloured  ribbons  of  his 
many  decorations.  Instead  of  the  riding-breeches  he 
wore  now  long  dark  blue  trousers  with  wide  red  stripes, 
held  by  straps  under  his  military  boots.  Refreshed  by 
his  bath,  he  was  very  hearty  and  well  satisfied  with  him- 
self;  there  was  more  crisp  bowing  and  clicking  of  spurs 

131 


BELGIUM 

and  exchange  of  amenities,  Mon  General  rubbing  his 
hands  briskly. 

"Call  him  Excellency,"  Villalobar  whispered  to  me 
hurriedly ;  "the  Germans  like  that."  And  then  he  went 
on,  speaking  to  the  General: 

"Excellency,  we  ask  the  right  to  communicate  with 
our  Governments;  as  to  cipher  the  right  is,  of  course, 
disputable,  but  not  in  clear." 

Seiner  Excellenz,  in  his  French,  said : 
"Yes,  of  course,  and  in  cipher  too,  if  you  desire." 
"The  telephone  communication  will  be  restored?" 
Seiner  Excellenz  reflected  for  a  moment  and  asked 
about  telephone  communication  with  towns  outside,  not 
wishing  us  to  have  that. 

"In  Berlin,"  he  said,  "there  is  a  special  interior  tele- 
phone service." 

"But  not  here,"  said  M.  Max,  "or  at  least  very  little." 
The  point  was  amiably  conceded  by  Seiner  Excel- 
lent. 

Then  Villalobar  asked  that  his  secretary,  the  Marquis 
de  Faura,  be  granted  a  safe  conduct  from  Antwerp; 
his  son  was  dying  in  Brussels.  And  this  too  was  con- 
ceded. 

In  fact.  Seiner  Excellenz  promised  everything,  and 
then  arose,  saying  that  his  dinner  was  awaiting  and  that 
he  was  very  hungry.  There  were  more  compliments,  and 
more  bowing  and  more  clicking  of  spurred  heels,  and 
we  left. 

The  twilight  seemed  to  have  gathered  earlier  that 
evening.  In  the  Grand'  Place  the  field  kitchens  steamed, 
and  at  each  entrance  there  were  the  dark  silhouettes  of 
the  Uhlans  on  guard.  Under  the  spreading  trees  along 
the  boulevards  the  dust  hung  like  fog,  and  each  of  the 

132 


THE  GREY  HORDES 

street  lamps  glowed  at  the  centre  of  a  luminous  ball. 
In  the  shadows  were  small  groups  of  men  in  spiritless 
discussion;  their  faces,  when  one  could  see  them,  were 
sad,  and  there  were  those  who  went  weeping  through  the 
gloom.  The  houses  were  all  closed  and  dark.  And  the 
grey  hordes  continued  to  shuffle  down  the  Chaussee  de 
Louvain  and  along  the  boulevards.  Only  in  the  Palace 
Hotel  was  there  light  and  brilliancy,  for  there  the  offi- 
cers of  the  German  army  were  dining. 

The  city  was  strangely  still,  overwhelmed  in  its  sor- 
row; and  weary  to  the  very  bones,  and  sick  at  heart,  I 
went  home  with  the  sensations  of  one  who  has  been  com- 
pelled to  witness  a  shameful  deed  in  the  humiliation  of 
the  proud,  beautiful,  sensitive  living  creature  that  had 
been  Brussels. 

We  had  expected  McCutcheon,  Cobb,  Irwin,  and 
Arno  Dorch  to  dine  with  us  that  night.  Eight  o'clock 
came  and  they  did  not  appear,  nor  had  we  any  news  of 
them.  In  their  stead,  and  in  their  places  at  the  table 
there  was  another  guest,  always  punctual,  come  to  stay 
a  long  time — old  haggard  Care.  I  felt  the  load  of  a 
great  responsibility  that  settled  down  familiarly  on 
shoulders  that  had  borne  through  so  many  years  the 
burdens  of  another  city,  and  I  worried  now  about  these 
old,  these  somewhat  too  reckless  and  adventurous 
friends. 

Then  in  the  evening  came  Monseigneur  Sarzana,  the 
Auditor  of  the  Papal  Nonciature,  to  inform  me  that  the 
Pope  had  died  that  afternoon  at  half-past  one  o'clock. 
He  sat  there  in  his  long  black  soutane,  distress  in  his 
Italian  countenance,  as  though  the  world  had  come  to 
an  end  and  the  heavens  were  about  to  be  rolled  to- 

133 


BELGIUM 

gether  like  a  scroll.    And  it  might  well  have  seemed, 
indeed  that  they  were! 

There  was,  of  course,  the  note  of  irony  inevitable  in 
all  human  catastrophe.  The  latest  edition  of  Le  Soir 
was  lying  on  my  table,  with  whole  columns  staring  blank 
and  white — the  mark  of  the  censor.  But  its  leading  arti- 
cle said  that  the  situation  was  excellent,  that  the  French 
and  English  armies  were  on  the  way,  and  that  the  future 
could  be  viewed  with  confidence !  ^ 

2  Le  gojj^^  August  20,  1914. 
Apres  Quinze  Jours  De  Guerre 

Nous  avons  resume  dernierement  la  situation  apres  huit  jours  de 
guerre.  Huit  jours  de  plus  se  sont  passes.  Nous  sommes  au  quin- 
zieme  jour. 

Quinze  jours  apres  le  premier  combat,  les  Allemands  sont  a  peine 
plus  avanees  qu'au  premier  jour.  lis  restent  accroches  a  Liege  dont 
les  forts  resistent  magnifiquement.  Leur  mouvement  sur  le  centre 
du  pays  est  arrete.  Ni  en  Belgique,  ni  en  France,  ils  n'ont  remporte 
aucun  succes.  Ils  devraient  etre  a  mi-chemin  de  Paris.  lis  ont  a 
peine  depasse  Liege  et  n'ont  pas  encore  atteint  la  barriere  de  la 
Meuse  ou  les  attendent  les  Fran^ais. 

Sur  le  front  lorrain  aucun  resultat.  Au  contraire,  ils  reculent 
et  I'oiFensive  francaise  avance  avec  une  surete  remarquable.  Bref, 
ce  n'est  pas  huit  jours  qui  sont  perdus  pour  leur  fameuse  marche  en 
avant,  c'est  quinze  jours.  Ce  retard  equivaut  a  la  perte  d'une 
grande  bataille.  Cette  bataille  c'est  notre  honneur  de  pouvoir  dire 
qu'ils  I'ont  perdue  en  Belgique  et  par  nos  armes.  Vingt  jours  main- 
tenant  se  sont  passes  depuis  le  debut  de  la  mobilisation  russe.  C'est 
dire  que  la  concentration  de  I'armee  s'acheve.  Deux  millions  de 
soldats  russes  marchent  sur  la  Vistule,  defendue  seulement  par  six 
corps  d'armee,  par  quelques  forts  et  par  le  landsturm.  Les  clairons 
de  I'armee  russe  sonnent  le  glas  de  I'Empire  allemand. 

Pour  nous  enfin  quelle  amelioration  nous  a  apportee  ce  retard  de 
huit  jours!  Mais  nous  ne  sommes  plus  seuls  au  centre  du  pays. 
Nos  allies  fran9ais  nous  ont  rejoint  et  une  armee  francaise  egale 
a  la  notre,  completement  equipee,  prete  a  combattre,  s'avance  en 

134 


THE  GREY  HORDES 

colonnes  de  route  vers  nous.  En  verite  c'est  un  beau  et  grand  spec- 
tacle. Anglais  et  Beiges  intimement  unis  vont  combattre  a  cote  des 
grandes  armees  fran9aises.  Pour  notre  petit  pays  si  fier  devant 
I'invasion,  une  grande  oeuvre  de  secours  et  de  protection  a  ete  real- 
isee.  Cette  oeuvre  est  la  contre-partie  de  I'heroique  resistance  de 
notre  armee  et  de  nos  forts,  qui  etaient  comme  le  disait  le  roi  Albert, 
a  I'avant-garde  des  armees  alliees  et  qui  sont  maintenant  au  milieu 
d'elles. 

Desormais  pour  nous,  la  periode  la  plus  critique  semble  passee. 
Et  avec  une  confiance  renouvelee  et  une  inebranlable  fermete,  nous 
pouvons  considerer  I'avenir. 

Le  Soir  also  published  a  proclamation  from  Burgomaster  Max, 
dated  the  twelfth,  calling  on  the  civil  population  to  turn  in  their 
arms. 

AFFICHE  DE  M.  MAX,  BOURGMESTRE  DE  BRUXELLES 

Armes  a  Feu 

Les  lois  de  la  guerre  interdisant  a  la  population  civile  de  prendre 
part  aux  hostilites  et  toutes  les  derogations  a  cette  regie  pouvant 
entrainer  des  represailles,  beaucoup  de  mes  concitoyens  m'ont  ex- 
prime  le  desir  de  se  debarrasser  des  armes  a  feu  qu'ils  possedent. 

Ces  armes  peuvent  etre  deposees  dans  les  commissariats  de 
police,  ou  il  en  sera  delivre  recepisse. 

Elles  seront  mises  en  surete  a  I'arsenal  central  d'Anvers  et 
seront  restitues  a  leurs  proprietaires  apres  la  fin  des  hostilites, 

Bruxelles,  le  12  aout,  1914. 

Translation  : 

PLACARD  OF  M.  MAX,  BURGOMASTER  OF  BRUSSELS 

Firearms 
The  laws  of  war  forbidding  the  civil  population  to  take  part 
in  hostilities,  and  all  infringements  of  this  rule  being  considered 
cause  for  reprisals,  many  of  my  fellow  citizens  have  expressed  the 
desire  to  relieve  themselves  of  the  firearms  that  they  have  in  their 
possession. 

These  firearms  may  be  deposited  in  the  central  police  stations, 
where  receipts  will  be  given  for  them. 

135 


BELGIUM 

They  will  be  placed  in  safety  in  the  central  arsenal  of  Antwerp 
and  will  be  returned  to  their  owners  at  the  end  of  hostilities. 
Brussels,  August  12,  1914. 

The  following  proclamation  was  placarded  on  the  walls  of  Brus- 
sels on  August  20 : 

Aux  habitants  des  provinces  occupees, 

Les  pouvoirs  executif  et  administratif  dans  les  provinces  occupees 
passent  aujourd'hui  entre  les  mains  des  chefs  superieurs  des 
troupes  allemandes. 

J'avertis  la  population  de  se  tenir  tranquille  et  de  continuer  a 
ses  occupations  civiles.  Nous  ne  faisons  pas  la  guerre  aux  habitants 
paisibles,  mais  seulement  a  I'armee.  Si  la  population  obeit,  on  ne 
lui  fera  pas  de  mal. 

La  propriete  des  communes  et  des  particuliers  sera  respectee  et  les 
vivres  et  materiaux  necessaires  a  I'armee  d'occupation  seront  exiges 
avec  egard  et  seront  payes. 

D'autre  part,  la  resistance  et  la  desobeissance  seront  punies  avec 
extreme  severite. 

Toutes  les  armes,  toutes  les  munitions,  tous  les  explosifs  doivent 
etre  remis  aux  troupes  allemandes  au  moment  de  leur  arrivee. 

Les  habitants  des  maisons  ou  Ton  trouverait  des  armes,  des  mu- 
nitions, des  explosifs,  auront  a  craindre  d'etre  fusilles  et  de  voir 
leurs  maisons  brulees. 

Quiconque  resistera  a  main  armee  sera  fusille. 

Quiconque  s'opposera  aux  troupes  allemandes, 

Quiconque  attentera  a  leurs  blesses, 

Quiconque  sera  trouve  I'arme  a  la  main, 
sera  fusille  de  meme. 
Le  general  commandant  le  III®  corps  d'armee, 

VON  LoCHOW, 

General  d'infanterie. 

Bruxelles,  le  20  aout  1914. 
Proclamation 
Des   troupes    allemandes    traverseront    Bruxelles   aujourd'hui   et 
les  jours  suivants,  et  sent  forcees  par  les  circonstances  de  reclamer 

136 


THE  GREY  HORDES 

a  la  ville  la  prestation  de  logements,  de  nourriture  et  de  fournitures. 
Toiites  ces  prestations  seront  reglees  regulierement  par  rinterme- 
diaire  de  autorites  communales. 

Je  m'attends  a  ce  que  la  population  se  conforme  sans  resistance 
a  ces  necessites  de  guerre  et,  specialement,  a  ce  qu'aucune  agression 
n'ait  lieu  contre  la  surete  des  troupes,  et  a  ce  que  les  prestations 
exigees  soient  promptement  fournies. 

En  pareil  cas,  je  donhe  toute  garantie  pour  la  conservation  de  la 
ville  et  pour  la  securite  des  habitants. 

Si  cependant,  ainsi  qu'il  est  malheureusement  arrive  ailleurs,  il  se 
produisait  des  agressions  contre  les  troupes,  des  tirs  genre,  je  me 
verrais  contraint  de  prendre  les  mesures  les  plus  severes. 

Le  General  Commandant  le  corps  d'armee, 

SixT  VON  Armin. 


XXIII 

UNO   PANO   DE   LAGRIMAS 

All  through  the  night  the  field-grey  hosts  wound 
through  the  city,  an  undulating  stream  of  bayonets  and 
grey  helmets,  and  Brussels  awoke  to  find  on  its  walls 
great  white  affiches  in  French  and  German,  signed  by 
General  Sixt  von  Armin,  threatening  reprisals  if  any 
overt  act  of  hostility  occurred.  There  was  a  demand, 
too,  for  a  contribution  of  50,000,000  francs,  as  well  as 
immense  quantities  of  supplies,  and  summoning  the 
province  of  Brabant  to  deliver  up  450,000,000  francs  by 
the  first  of  September.  For  three  days  and  three  nights 
the  grey  stream  flowed  by,  and  Brussels  was  crushed  by 
the  sorrow  and  humiliation  of  an  alien  occupation. 
There  was  the  same  phenomenon  of  the  brilliant  sun, 
though  there  were  no  longer  any  Belgian  flags  to  catch 
its  wonderful  light  in  their  folds.  Those  cookstoves 
were  burning  in  the  Grand'  Place,  and  the  Uhlans  were 
at  their  sentinel-posts.  There  were  no  trains ;  trams,  it 
was  said,  were  to  stop;  there  were  no  horses;  suddenly 
no  fiacres^  no  taxis,  no  automobiles  except  those  in  which 
German  officers  raced  about  town,  a  soldier  on  the  box 
with  a  rifle  across  his  knees.  There  were  no,  telegraphs 
and  no  telephones,  and — strangest  phenomenon  of  all — 
there  were  no  newspapers.  It  was  as  though  we  had 
suddenly  been  plunged  into  darkness;  however  inaccu- 
rate, newspapers  would  have  served  as  a  clearing-house 
for  the  wild  and  fearful  rumours  that  set  in  on  such  a 
tide  as  might  overwhelm  one.    Staid  persons  had  heard 

138 


UNO  PANO  DE  LAGRIMAS 

firing,  and  had  seen  the  flash  of  cannons  and  searchlights 
sweeping  the  eastern  skies  at  night;  or  the  Germans 
were  fortifying  the  cemetery  at  Molenbeek  St.-Jean, 
just  outside  the  town,  or  they  had  mounted  cannons  at 
Jette  St.-Pierre  in  order  to  bombard  Brussels  if  the 
tribute  money  was  not  raised  by  Sunday  morning !  The 
Emperor  of  Austria  was  dead;  England  had  declared 
war  on  Holland  and  the  United  States  on  Germany. 
And  everybody  came  to  the  Legation  to  learn  if  the 
rumours  were  true.  The  flood  of  them,  mounting  all 
the  day,  seemed  to  be  at  full  tide  in  the  sombre  hour  of 
twilight. 

Of  a  piece  with  them  were  those  silly,  romanticistic 
tales  of  my  activities — tales  that  by  their  currency  were 
to  plague  me  for  so  many  weeks.  The  first  of  those 
melodramatic  stories,  assigning  to  me  a  role  for  which 
I  was  never  in  any  wise  designed,  was  to  the  effect  that 
I  had  gone  out  to  the  east  of  town  to  meet  the  German 
army  and  had  told  the  commanding  officer,  with  I  know 
not  what  theatrical  flourish,  that  if  one  stone  of  Brus- 
sels was  touched  America  would  declare  war  on  Ger- 
many. The  ridiculous  tale  was  spread  about  in  Brus- 
sels and  in  Belgium  and  over  the  seas,  to  be  published 
and  wafted  abroad  to  no  purpose  other  than  to  afford 
one  more  superfluous  proof  of  the  place  the  cinema 
has  in  the  affections  of  mankind  and  of  that  inveterate 
vice  of  reporters,  who  foolishly  think  that  they  can 
imagine  something  that  is  more  interesting  than  the 
truth. 

At  the  Legation  there  were  numerous  callers,  Amer- 
ican, English,  Belgian,  each  with  his  peculiar  personal 
problem,  his  little  worry,  his  desire  for  comfort  and 
reassurance;  and  we  were  bedeviled  all  day  with  the 

139 


BELGIUM 

difficulties  of  getting  off  despatches.  The  Germans  had 
been  most  amiable — had  bowed,  smiled,  saluted,  and  as- 
sured us  that  the  despatches  could  go;  but  they  never 
did  go,  and  when  we  went  to  inquire  the  reason  why,  we 
were  sent  from  pillar  to  post  and  from  Peter  to  Paul, 
with  protestations,  explanations,  and  apologies.  But 
the  despatches  remained  undespatched. 

On  Saturday  morning  at  half-past  seven  o'clock  I 
was  awakened  out  of  a  deep  sleep,  and  there  was  Gus- 
tave,  very  white  and  shaken,  saying  in  a  breathless 
voice : 
^  ''Les  Allemands  sont  la!  Deuoo  generauoor 

I  put  on  a  dressing-gown  and  went  down,  and  there  in 
my  office  were  General  von  Jarotsky  and  a  nice-looking 
aide-de-camp,  politely  come  to  return  my  call. 

''Je  ne  suis  pas  encore  en  uniformed'  I  said,  offering 
my  excuses  for  my  attire,  and  the  General  laughed 
heartily,  slapping  his  yellow  puttees  with  a  little  silver- 
headed  riding-crop.  He  expressed  his  regret  that  the 
telegrams  had  not  been  sent,  but  he  had  arranged  all 
with  the  Director  of  Telegraphs  and  I  could  now  send 
them  to  the  bureau. 

When,  the  long  day  having  slowly  declined  toward 
10:30  a.  m.,  Villalobar  came  and  I  could  give  him  the 
good  news  about  our  despatches,  we  drove  to  the  Bureau 
of  Telegraphs,  where  the  non-commissioned  officer  was 
patient,  stolid,  and  unmoved — and  the  despatches  were 
not  sent.  It  was  useless,  and  we  gave  up  and  drove 
away  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville.  We  found  M.  Max  in  his 
cabinet,  acquainted  him  with  the  situation,  and  he  sent 
for  General  von  Jarotsky,  who  appeared,  bowing,  smil- 
ing, clicking  his  spurs.  It  was  very  strange,  he  said ;  let 
them  bring  the  Directeur   des   Telegraphes   immedi- 

140 


UNO  PANO  DE  LAGRIMAS 

ately  before  him,  and  he  woul^  issue  instructions  that 
should  be  final.  One  could  not  help  feeling  sorry  for 
the  Directeur  des  Telegraphes,  in  view  of  what  was 
about  to  happen  to  him. 

Then  the  General  and  the  Burgomaster  discussed  the 
conditions  in  the  city,  growing  hourly  more  desperate. 
M.  Max  announced  that  there  was  no  food,  no  forage 
for  the  horses,  and  finally,  reserving  the  worst  for  the 
last,  that  there  was  no  money  in  the  banks — so  that  he 
could  not  pay  the  levy.  At  this  revelation  the  General 
started  from  his  seat  and  demanded  explanations,  and 
]M.  Max  went  on  to  tell  him  that  the  treasure  in  the 
Banque  Nationale,  upon  which  the  whole  of  the  finan- 
cial system  of  Belgium  is  based,  had  all  been  transferred 
to  Antwerp. 

"lis  ont  eu  tort!  Ce  nest  pas  correct j  ca!*'  said  the 
General,  growing  red. 

M.  Max  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  the  General 
reflected.  Finally  he  said  that  he  would  accept  checks, 
notes  or  some  written  evidence  of  indebtedness  and  then 
he  went  away  and  left  us.  And  when  he  had  gone  M. 
Max  explained  that  he  had  taken  advantage  of  our 
presence  to  mention  to  the  General  the  difficult  point 
about  the  50,000,000  francs;  he  was  glad  of  our  com- 
pany and  countenance  as  he  broke  the  news  to  the  pep- 
pery little  man. 

The  Burgomaster,  expecting  some  one,  asked  us  to 
wait  in  the  Salle  du  College,  where  the  Echevins  meet — 
the  room  with  the  great  oak  table  and  the  high-backed 
chairs  and  the  tapestries  of  the  time  of  Charles  V,  their 
various  coats-of-arms  all  open  books  to  Villalobar.  M. 
Max  made  many  apologies,  for  the  apartment  had  been 
turned  into  a  chamber  for  him ;  and  it  was  given  a  some- 

141 


BELGIUM 

what  more  modern  and  contemporary  note  by  the  Httle 
iron  cot  where  the  brave  Burgomaster  slept  those  trou- 
bled nights,  and  by  the  valise  and  toilet-case  with  a  lit- 
tle mirror  on  a  table  and  the  change  of  clothes  hung  over 
a  chair. 

Finally  the  Directeur  des  Telegraphes  came — a  mis- 
erable little  man  with  the  dismal  air  of  one  in  Sunday 
blacks,  a  typical  rond  de  cuir,  who  could  accumulate 
difficulties  and  be  prodigal  of  excuses,  like  function- 
aries the  world  over,  whether  at  Nashapur  or  Babylon, 
whether  at  Brussels  or  Toledo,  much  more  fertile  in  rea- 
sons why  a  given  thing  cannot  be  done  than  in  expedi- 
ents to  get  it  accomplished.  When  the  Burgomaster 
came  in  he  wrote  out  an  order,  designed  to  overcome  the 
official  reluctance  of  the  Directeur,  went  out,  and  re- 
turned presently  flourishing  the  order  triumphantly, 
for  it  had  the  General's  signature. 

As  Count  Bottaro-Costa  had  said  the  morning  the 
Germans  entered  Brussels,  our  position  was  delicate. 
Diplomatic  representatives  accredited  to  the  King  of 
the  Belgians,  our  place  was  near  the  Court  and  the  Gov- 
ernment, which  had  retired  to  Antwerp.  I  realised  this 
fact,  of  course,  and  had  discussed  and  settled  the  point 
of  etiquette  with  Davignon,  the  Belgian  Minister  for 
Foreign  Affairs. 

The  situation  was  unprecedented.  Never  before,  save 
when  the  Germans  entered  Paris  in  1870,  had  diplomats 
remained  when  a  Court  and  Government  had  gone,  and 
the  cases  were  not  precisely  on  all  fours,  as  the  lawyers 
say.  The  Germans  had  shown  us  personally  every 
courtesy  and  yet  we  were  not  in  communication  with  our 
Governments;  between  us  and  the  telegraph  wires  in 
Antwerp  were  hostile  armies,  and  it  was  not  difficult  to 

142 


UNO  PANO  DE  LAGRIMAS 

imagine  that  there  might  be  uneasiness  in  those  far  cap- 
itals where  the  Governments  were  waiting  for  word 
from  us.  And  then  on  that  Sunday — a  day  of  dull  and 
rainy  skies,  as  if  the  fine  weather  were  weary  at  last — a 
man  somehow  got  through  the  lines  from  Ghent,  riding 
as  though  he  had  been  in  Browning's  poem,  with  a  letter 
from  our  Consul,  Mr.  Johnson,  bearing  two  telegrams 
for  me  from  Washington,  one  approving  my  course 
and  the  other  raising  the  question  of  whether  the  Lega- 
tion should  not  be  removed  to  Antwerp  to  keep  in  com- 
munication with  the  Belgian  Government.  I  still  had  a 
feeling,  hourly  growing  stronger,  that  my  place  was  in 
Brussels. 

Indeed,  on  Sunday  morning,  after  the  entry  of  the 
Germans,  an  official  of  the  Foreign  Office  had  come  to 
the  Legation  formally  to  express,  "on  behalf  of  the  King 
and  his  people,"  gratitude  and  appreciation  of  my  atti- 
tude toward  Belgium  in  having  advised  the  Burgomas- 
ter not  to  offer  futile  resistance  to  the  German  army; 
he  was  generous  enough  to  say  that  this  action  had  saved 
the  city. 

I  had  no  vision  of  what  the  future  held  in  store,  of 
course,  but  I  had  a  strong  impression  that  for  the  mo- 
ment there  was  work  to  be  done.  There  were  people 
in  trouble;  they  were  coming  to  the  Legation  at 
all  hours  of  the  day  and  night ;  and  while  in  most  cases 
sympathy  was  all  that  I  could  give  them,  it  seemed  in 
many  of  those  cases  to  be  what  they  most  needed  and 
desired. 

There  were  Americans  and  American  interests  to  be 
looked  after,  and  I  had  assumed,  as  well,  the  protection 
of  British  interests  in  the  land.  And  then  the  mere 
presence  of  diplomatic  representatives  of  neutral  Pow- 

143 


BELGIUM 

ers  was  itself  a  kind  of  restraint,  and  especially  the  pres- 
ence of  representatives  of  America,  whose  public  opin- 
ion almost  immediately  became  the  jury  before  which 
the  world  tried  its  great  cause. 

But  we  must  get  into  communication  with  Washing- 
ton and  with  civilization  again,  and  since  our  despatches 
would  not  be  forwarded  from  Brussels — the  Directeur 
never  sent  one  of  them — and  since  the  nearest  telegraph 
station  was  Antwerp,  it  was  necessary  to  go  to  Ant- 
werp. For  this  service  Gibson  volunteered,  and  Mr. 
Blount,  an  American,  offered  to  drive  him  in  his  car. 

I  found  my  General,  with  an  aide  and  an  orderly, 
just  dismounted  from  sweating  steeds,  on  the  steps  of 
the  E scalier  d'Honnetlr  in  the  court  of  the  Hotel  de 
Ville,  brandishing  his  riding-crop,  very  red,  shouting 
to  a  group  of  Brussels  trades  people,  come  to  present 
their  bons  for  commandeered  goods  and  to  implore  pay- 
ment. One  after  the  other  the  General  snatched  the  lit- 
tle papers  from  the  uplifted  suppliant  hands,  and  one 
by  one  returned  them  with  a  gruff  "Nicht  gut!"  and 
then,  seeing  me,  rushed  forward  smiling,  with  out- 
stretched hands  and  a  welcoming,  '^Ah,  mon  Ministre!" 
We  went  up  through  the  noble  halls,  already  trans- 
formed by  signs  that  had  been  put  up  for  the  conveni- 
ence of  Brussels  folk  having  dealings  here — although 
with  some  lack  of  imagination  they  were  all  in  Ger- 
man— and  with  a  smile  he  gave  me  a  laisser-passer 
permitting  Gibson  and  Blount  to  pass  through  the  lines 
to  Antwerp  and  to  return;  and  after  luncheon  they 
started  on  their  dangerous  mission  with  the  cipher  tele- 
grams that  I  had  prepared  for  Washington. 

There  was  nothing  to  do  then  but  to  wait,  and  I  could 
not  resist  the  temptation  to  remain  out  of  doors  all  the 

144 


UNO  PANO  DE  LAGRIMAS 

afternoon,  in  the  sweet  air's  anodyne,  to  drive  in  the 
Bois  once  more — though,  somewhat  to  my  dismay,  I 
found  that  our  motor,  with  its  little  flag,  attracted  an 
attention  that  was  apt  to  prove  embarrassing;  the  as- 
sembled crowds  uncovered  as  the  tiny  flag  went  flutter- 
ing by  and  cried  "Vive  VAmerique!" 

Brussels  showed  after  all  few  outward  signs  of  change 
save  an  occasional  body  of  tired  German  soldiers 
marching  along,  now  and  then  a  motor  filled  with  offi- 
cers whizzing  by,  and  the  folded  vans  of  the  Kermesse- 
making  tziganes,  going  to  I  know  not  what  retreat. 
There  were  few  vehicles  in  the  street  and  much  sadness 
and  humiliation.  The  Bed  Cross  flag,  however,  still 
floated  from  the  tower  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  and  high 
on  Ste.-Gudule  the  Belgian  flag  remained.  The  Rue  de 
Namur  looked  more  like  old  times ;  the  shops  were  peep- 
ing out  one  by  one,  beginning  to  resume  business.  I 
had  gone  there  to  my  barber,  and  even  there  one  could 
not  escape  tragedy,  for  one  of  the  barbers,  a  German, 
was  weeping  because  he  had  to  leave  his  Belgian  wife 
and  return  to  Germany  to  enter  the  army.  Le  Jeune, 
the  coiffeur,  expatiated  with  tonsorial  volubility  on  the 
state  of  the  modern  world. 

"Je  suis  un  penseur  profond"  he  said,  analysing  his 
thoughts  with  such  a  flourish  of  scissors  that  I  feared  for 
my  ears,  ''je  pense  ton  jours  au  fond  de  tous  les  prohle- 
mes  de  la  vie"  and  the  ultimate  result  of  this  profound 
thinking  was  the  not  wholly  original  opinion  that  a  re- 
public is  the  safest  form  of  government  in  the  world. 

When  I  could  no  longer  postpone  my  return  to  the 
Legation,  trouble,  ever  punctual,  was  waiting  on  the 
door-sill,  where  there  was  a  throng  of  frightened  women. 
The  first  of  them  to  accost  me  was  a  charming  Russian, 

145 


BELGIUM 

very  pretty,  who  might  have  stepped  out  of  one  of 
Turgenev's  novels.  When  I  asked  why  she  had  not 
gone  to  the  American  Committee,  so  near  her  house  in 
the  Rue  de  Naples,  she  replied: 

''Parce  quit  vaut  mieux  s'adresser  a  Dieu  qu'a  ses 
saintsT 

She  had  heard  that  all  the  inhabitants  of  Brussels  had 
been  ordered  to  leave  the  city  within  fifteen  minutes. 

It  was  like  that  every  evening,  when  the  day's  ru- 
mours and  alarms  reached  high  tide  and  overflowed  into 
the  Legation.  One  said  that  the  Germans  had  been 
routed  and  were  falling  back,  intending  to  bombard 
Brussels;  another  had  heard  of  soldiers  at  Nivelles 
y  killed  in  such  numbers  that  they  had  not  room  to  fall, 
but  remained  standing  dead  before  the  French  trenches 
in  mass  formation;  and  then  there  was  that  wild  story 
to  the  effect  that  Belgians  were  to  leave  Brussels  in 
fifteen  minutes.  And  when  I  told  them  there  was  no 
truth  in  the  rumour,  and  that  they  might  go  safely  home, 
they  said: 

"On  voiis  hrulera  une  grande  chandelle!" 

It  was,  perhaps,  some  consolation  for  being  what 
BuUe  called  ''uno  pano  de  lagrimasf' 

We  had  news,  however,  of  our  correspondents.  Mc- 
Cutcheon  and  Cobb  and  Irwin  and  Dorch  had  come 
back  from  Louvain,  but  had  left  immediately  for  the 
front,  going  toward  the  south.  The  news  was  brought 
by  Will  Irwin,  who  had  turned  back  from  his  advance, 
overcome  by  illness,  but  McCutcheon,  Cobb  and  the 
others  had  gone  on,  hoping  to  get  to  Nivelles.  As  for 
Davis,  he  had  disappeared,  no  one  knew  where.  Ad- 
mirable men,  nothing  daunted,  always  cool,  gay  and 
debonair !    But  one  worried  about  them. 

146 


XXIV 

RICHARD    HARDING  DAVIS 

It  was  as  quiet  as  a  Sunday  morning  in  an  Ohio 
village ;  there  were  few  vehicles  in  the  streets — unless  a 
cannon  may  be  called  a  vehicle — for  motors  and  horses 
had  been  commandeered,  and  those  that  had  escaped  this 
fate  were  hidden  away  lest  it  overtake  them.  The  brew- 
eries, always  scrupulously  respected  by  the  Germans, 
continued  in  operation  and  their  long  wagons  rumbled 
by,  still  drawn  by  their  superb  Braban9on  horses. 

There  remained  one  other  institution — the  old  cocher 
who  sat  just  outside  my  window  in  the  Rue  Belliard. 
I  had  watched  him  all  the  spring,  a  red-faced  old  man 
with  a  stern  and  really  fine  Roman  profile,  who  at  a  cer- 
tain hour  every  morning  drove  up  on  his  fiacre,  took  a 
place  in  the  shade  and  then  followed  the  sun  in  its  course, 
like  the  martial  airs  of  England,  though  at  a  discreeter 
distance,  keeping  always  in  the  shade.  Perhaps  he  pre- 
ceded the  sun,  but  whichever  of  the  two  it  was,  astro- 
nomically, he  was  always  there  when  his  fares  would 
permit  him  to  be ;  if  he  went  away  he  returned  at  noon, 
put  the  nose  bag  on  his  Irorse,  and  while  the  horse  at 
cocher  he  took  out  from  under  the  seat  his  own  lunch 
wrapped  in  a  piece  of  paper,  seated  himself  in  his  fiacre 
and  ate  too;  then  he  would  light  his  pipe  and  smoke 
peacefully.  His  old  horse  was  evidently  too  poor  to  be 
commandeered  either  by  Belgian  or  German  troops  and 
so  it  was  left  to  him,  and  he  came  every  morning  at  the 
same  hour  and  sat  there  unmoved*  and  undisturbed, 

147 


BELGIUM 

while  war  and  tumult  raged  about  him — a  kind  of  rock 
in  the  midst  of  the  universal  chaos  and  welter  of  worlds, 
and  a  sight  comforting  to  behold. 

I  was  standing  in  my  window  that  Tuesday  morning, 
looking  at  him  and  ruminating  on  the  hopelessness  of 
the  human  race  and  the  vanity  of  things  in  general, 
when  I  heard  cries  as  of  glad  welcome  in  the  next  room. 
I  went  in,  and  there  sat  Richard  Harding  Davis.  He 
was  extended  in  one  of  the  Government's  big  leather 
chairs,  with  an  air  of  having  collapsed  in  it.  He  was 
sunburned  and  unshaven,  powdered  grey  from  head  to 
foot  with  dust,  and  beside  him  on  the  floor  lay  his  bun- 
dle, a  khaki  bag,  part  of  his  correspondent's  kit.  De- 
spite his  good  looks,  his  indubitable  distinction  in  any 
emergency,  he  looked  like  a  weary  tramp,  and  he  lifted 
his  tired  eyes  droUy,  humourously,  to  me. 

He  had  had  an  adventure,  a  perilous  experience,  in 
his  attempt  to  get  through  the  German  lines  to  the 
south.  On  Sunday  he  had  got  down  as  far  as  Enghien, 
where  he  was  arrested  by  German  soldiers  as  a  spy,  and 
taken  on  to  Eigne,  on  the  way  tearing  up  and  eating 
an  autograph-letter  from  Colonel  Roosevelt  presenting 
him  to  President  Poincare  of  the  French  Republic — ^he 
had  shown  me  the  letter  in  pride  a  few  days  before.  At 
Eigne  he  was  locked  up  in  an  outhouse  with  a  guard 
over  him  while  his  fate  was  under  discussion.  At  inter- 
vals all  night  he  was  visited  by  German  officers,  and  by 
a  major,  who  gave  him  a  realistic  demonstration  of  how 
he  was  to  be  shot  "through  the  stummick,"  as  Davis  told 
it.  He  kept  his  courage  up,  however,  and  persuaded 
the  officers  that  he  was  both  a  "damn  fool"  and  a  "gen- 
tleman," in  spite  of  the  uniform  in  the  photograph  on 
the  passport.     It  was  his  passport,  or  the  photograph 

148 


RICHARD  HARDING  DAVIS 

on  it,  that  was  the  cause  of  the  trouble.  The  photograph 
represented  Davis  in  his  war  correspondent's  costume 
and  as  this  was  of  Idiaki,  with  a  Sam  Browne  belt  and 
decorations,  he  did  look  enough  like  an  English  officer 
to  create  suspicions  in  German  company. 

He  gave  us  a  humourous  account  of  his  experience 
and  he  wrote  it  afterwards  in  the  book  he  dedicated  to 
King  Albert.  He  could  laugh  then,  tired  though  he 
was.  They  had  tried  in  a  thousand  ways  to  trap  him; 
asked  him  if  he  did  not  wish  to  see  some  English  pris- 
oners. 

"No,"  he  said,  "I  wish  to  see  the  Palace  Hotel  in 
Brussels." 

Finally  the  officer  said  he  feared  the  prisoner  would 
have  to  be  shot  at  sunrise.  Perhaps  he  would  have  been, 
but  he  proposed  to  send  a  note  to  me,  and  agreed  that 
if  I  did  not  come  for  him  within  the  time  therein  speci- 
fied they  might  shoot  him.  He  addressed  a  little  note  to 
me  and  that  gave  them  pause ;  and,  after  much  discussion 
he  was  released  and  given  definite  instructions  to  pro- 
ceed, along  a  specified  route  indicated  on  his  pass,  back 
to  Brussels,  to  report  to  the  military  commander  there 
within  forty-eight  hours,  and  to  establish  satisfactorily 
his  identity.  He  set  out  on  foot  for  Enghien;  walked 
half  the  night  and  then  induced  a  German  officer  to  let 
him  ride  with  him  in  his  motor.  And  so  he  came  to 
Brussels.  I  proposed  that  we  go  at  once  to  the  Hotel 
de  Ville  to  report,  and  we  drove  down  there.  But  my 
good  General  von  Jarotsky  was  not  to  be  seen;  to  my 
infinite  regret,  I  was  told  that  he  was  even  then  turning 
over  his  command  to  another  general;  the  two  generals 
were  then  at  luncheon.  I  declined  to  wait,  and  had  an 
officer  endorse  on  Davis's  pass  a  statement  to  the  effect 

149 


BELGIUM 

that  he  was  well  known  to  me,  that  he  was  no  spy,  and 
that,  having  complied  with  the  order  to  report,  he  was 
to  be  released. 

When  Davis,  restored  by  a  bath  and  luncheon,  came 
back  at  four  o'clock,  we  went  again  to  the  Hotel  de 
Ville  and  waited,  there  in  the  escalier  d'honneur,  where 
on  the  landing,  are  ranged  the  busts  of  former  Burgo- 
masters, on  the  lovely  white  marble  pedestals  of  which 
German  sentinels  were  sticking  the  ends  of  their  fin- 
ished cigarettes.  Finally  we  were  shown  into  a  room, 
passing  great  trays  with  the  remnants  of  the  luncheon 
of  the  two  generals — the  debris  of  a  feast  of  giants.  M. 
Max  and  M.  Jacquemain  were  at  a  long  table,  and  Vil- 
lalobar  was  there  too,  but  no  General  von  Jarotsky. 
Instead,  General  the  Baron  Arthur  von  Liittwitz,  his 
successor — a  broad-shouldered,  grey-haired,  remarkably 
handsome  man,  very  big  and  impressive,  with  blue  eyes, 
pink,  healthy  skin,  and  a  strong  jaw — ^was  present,  pre- 
siding, dominating,  at  that  table.  He  was  in  a  bluish- 
grey  uniform,  with  black-and-white  ribbon  of  the 
Iron  Cross  and  the  white  Maltese  Cross  of  the  Order  of 
St.  John  of  Jerusalem  on  his*  left  breast.  When  we 
asked  him  for  news  he  laid  his  hand  on  the  white  cross 
and  said: 

"Notre  Dieu  nous  a  He  tres  gracieuxj" 

Then  he  told  us  of  German  victories  everywhere. 

I  presented  Davis,  easily  arranged  his  release,  and 
we  came  away. 


XXV 

"we  have  to  destroy  the  city" 

On  Wednesday  morning,  August  twenty-sixth,  when 
Villalobar  and  I  drove  over  to  see  General  the  Baron 
Arthur  von  Liittwitz,  we  found  him  at  the  Foreign  Of- 
fice. The  Germans  had  established  themselves  in  the 
Belgian  ministPres  and  shut  off  the  Park  and  the  Rue  de 
la  Loi;  there  were  sentries  everywhere  and  much  ex- 
plaining about  der  Spanischer  Gesandter  and  der  Ge- 
sandter  der  Vereinigten  Staaten,  and  we  sat  a  long  while 
in  the  anteroom  where  we  had  sat  so  often  before  wait- 
ing to  see  M.  Davignon.  German  officers  were  coming 
and  going,  very  much  at  home.  Finally  we  were  shown 
into  the  presence  of  General  von  Liittwitz,  who  was  most 
affable  and  courteous,  and  evidently  a  man  of  strength 
and  will.  We  began,  Villalobar  and  I,  to  talk  about  the 
question  of  communication  and  to  make  suggestions 
about  Brussels — the  question  of  food,  for  instance,  but- 
the  General  said: 

"Please  grant  me  a  truce  for  two  days  until  I  can 
install  a  civil  administration.  After  that  has  been  done 
all  will  go  beautifully." 

As  we  were  about  to  go  General  von  Liittwitz  said: 

"A  dreadful  thing  has  occurred  at  Louvain.  The 
general  in  command  there  was  talking  with  the  Burgo- 
master when  the  son  of  the  Burgomaster  shot  the  gen- 
eral, and  the  population  began  firing  on  the  German 
troops." 

151 


BELGIUM 

We  did  not  at  once  grasp  the  whole  significance  of 
the  remark. 

"And  now,  of  course,"  he  went  on,  "we  have  to  de- 
stroy the  city.  The  orders  are  given  and  not  one  stone 
will  be  left  on  another.  I'm  afraid  that  that  beautiful 
Hotel  de  Ville,  which  we  saw  as  we  came  through  there 
the  other  day,  is  now  no  more." 

When  he  said  this  he  lifted  up  his  hands  in  a  gesture 
of  regret. 

That  evening  Gibson  and  Blount  returned  from  Ant- 
werp, full  of  news ;  first,  and  best  of  all,  a  despatch  from 
Washington  approving  my  course  and  li^ving  the  ques- 
tion of  the  removal  of  the  Legation  entirely  to  my  judg- 
ment. Only  those  who  have  been  at  the  end  of  a  tele- 
graph-wire, three  thousand  miles  away  from  home,  and 
in  the  midst  of  difficulties,  can  know  the  consolation  that 
such  words  would  afford. 


XXVI 


LOUVAIN 


It  had  been  raining  during  the  night  but  it  cleared 
partly.  Davis  expected  to  leave  at  one  o'clock  with 
Gerald  Morgan  and  Miss  Boyle  O'Reilly  on  a  troop 
train  for  Aix-la-Chapelle. 

"I  told  them,"  Davis  said,  at  parting,  "that  in  four 
days  the  American  Minister  would  begin  to  inquire 
about  me;  that  is  the  way  they  always  do  it  on  the  stage." 
He  said  this  with  his  humourous  mouth  twitching, 
fumbling  with  the  broad  black  ribbon  of  his  eye-glass. 
I  bade  him  good-bye  and  watched  him  drive  away  in  a 
fiacre.  It  was  drawn  by  the  sorriest  pair  of  nags  I  ever 
saw,  and  yet  he  sat  there  as  calm  and  distinguished  as 
if  he  were  driving  up  Fifth  Avenue.  And  I  thought  of 
Van  Bibber,  and  of  how  the  Avenue  looks  in  the  late 
afternoon  when  the  throngs  are  going  up  Murray  Hill. 
Ah  me!  Did  that  gay  insouciance  still  exist  anywhere 
in  the  world?  I  stood  and  watched  him  out  of  sight, 
regretting  his  departure.    And  I  never  saw  him  again. 

The  horror  of  Louvain  was  on  us  like  a  nightmare, 
all  the  more  terrible  because  it  was  vague,  undefined,  a 
kind  of  nameless,  formless  thing,  that  sent  a  shudder — as 
perhaps  it  was  intended  to  do — through  Brussels,  where 
the  like  might  happen  at  any  hour.  The  city  was  filled 
with  foreboding  and  vague  apprehension;  miserable 
refugees,  with  dumb  expressions  and  eyes  that  had 

153 


BELGIUM 

looked  on  terrible  things,  came  plodding  wearily  into 
town. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  it  was  reported  at  the  Legation 
that  at  Louvain  the  Germans  at  that  moment  were  mas- 
sacring the  people,  that  the  town  was  burning,  and  the 
tragedy  complete:  hundreds  had  been  shot  down;  the 
cathedral,  the  Library,  the  Hotel  de  Ville  were  in 
flames.  Forty  priests,  some  of  them  from  the  American 
College,  had  been  seized  as  hostages,  and  were  even  then 
being  driven  in  carts  along  the  road  to  Brussels. 

What  was  to  be  done  ?  As  I  was  thinking,  Villalobar 
came,  he  too  with  that  face  of  horror ;  there  were  Span- 
ish priests  in  that  band  of  hostages  as  well.  We  decided 
to  go  at  once  to  General  von  Liittwitz.  Villalobar's  car 
was  at  the  door  and  we  drove  away.  It  was  seven 
o'clock.  There  was  a  heavy  guard  at  the  Ministries 
and  the  sentinels  were  ugly;  one  of  them  impudently 
mounted  on  the  footboard  of  the  car.  At  the  Foreign 
Office  we  were  told  that  we  could  not  see  the  General. 
We  insisted  on  sending  in  our  cards,  and  sat  there  wait- 
ing— sensible,  in  the  movements  of  the  officers  who  were 
constantly  passing  through,  of  an  evil  atmosphere.  The 
windows  were  open  and  the  Marquis  and  I  stood  there 
looking  out  into  the  little  Place  before  the  Palais  de  la 
Nation.  There  were  groups  of  grey  soldiers  on  the  steps 
of  the  Palace,  their  arms  stacked  on  the  pavement.  Two 
ugly  machine-guns  were  mounted  to  sweep  the  Park. 

"They  vomit  death!"  said  Villalobar,  as  though 
speaking  to  himself.  We  turned  away  from  the  win- 
dow. 

Finally  Major  Hans  von  Herwaerts,  who  had 
once  been  Military  Attache  at  the  German  Embassy 
at  Washington,  and  was  then  on  the  staff  of  General 

154 


LOUVAIN 

von  Liittwitz,  wearing  a  great  pair  of  tortoise-shell 
reading  glasses,  came  out  to  receive  us.  To  him  I  made 
my  protests  about  the  treatment  of  the  priests  and  the 
professors  of  the  American  College,  and  indeed  such 
treatment  of  priests  in  general,  and  Villalobar  made 
similar  representations  on  behalf  of  the  Spanish  priests. 
Major  von  Herwaerts  understood,  rushed  into  the  room, 
where  behind  the  closed  door  was  General  von  Liitt- 
witz. He  came  out  and  assured  us  that  the  release  of 
the  priests  would  be  immediately  ordered,  and  while  he 
was  telling  us  this  two  tall  dark  figures,  priests,  swept 
out  in  their  long  black  soutanes.  Then  we  all  went  with 
the  General  into  his — or  into  Davignon's — room.  He 
was  serious,  and  instantly  instructed  Major  von  Her- 
waerts to  give  orders  liberating  the  priests ;  told  him  to 
give  them  by  telegraph,  by  telephone,  and  in  addition  to 
send  out  mounted  orderlies  to  meet  the  columns  on  the 
road  and  to  liberate  the  priests  at  once. 

There  was  no  more  that  we  could  do,  but  we  sat  and 
talked  awhile,  with  the  General.  He  told  us  that  the 
Germans  everywhere  were  victorious  and  that  they 
would  soon  be  in  Paris;  and  he  said  that  Burgomaster 
Max  had  received  an  official  telegram  from  the  French 
Government  saying  that  it  could  give  Belgium  no  fur- 
ther aid  on  the  battle-field.  He  spoke  of  M.  Max  with 
admiration. 

"A  brave  man,"  he  said,  "and  patriotic.  I  admire  him; 
he  stands  up  and  doesn't  crawl  when  he  comes  into  my 
presence." 

I  did  not  know  why  anybody  should  crawl.  .  .  . 

When  I  returned  to  the  Legation  I  found  INIadame 
Poullet,  the  wife  of  the  Belgian  Minister  of  Arts  and 
Sciences,  with  two  of  her  children — little  girls  with 

155 


BELGIUM 

golden  curls,  their  upturned  faces  filled  with  that  dis- 
tress and  wonder  and  despair  which  children  know  when 
thfeir  parents  weep,  for  then  their  little  world  tumbled  in 
ruins  about  them,  and  there  is  nowhere  to  go.   .    .    . 

The  world  seemed  very  much  like  that  that  evening 
to  all  of  us,  who  were  as  helpless  as  children.  Madame 
Poullet's  home  was  in  Louvain,  and  that  afternoon  her 
mother,  a  woman  eighty  years  old,  had  walked  all  the 
way  from  the  doomed  city,  a  distance  of  twenty-four 
kilometres.  Madame  PouUet  told  me  something  of  the 
awful  tale  as  she  knew  it — but  it  seemed  better,  ulti- 
mately, to  talk  of  the  two  little  girls  standing  by,  and 
as  she  did  so  she  gathered  then*  into  her  arms,  folding 
them  in  an  embrace  like  that  of  countless  other  mothers 
in  Belgium  that  night,  and  finally  led  them  away,  their 
curls  bobbing  down  the  long  corridor,  somewhat  com- 
forted, I  could  hope,  for  there  was — strange  miracle 
in  those  days! — a  smile. 


/ 


XXVII 

MONSEIGNEUR  AND  THE  LIBRARY 

All  that  next  day  the  panic-stricken  people  contin- 
ued to  pour  into  the  city  from  Louvain,  with  their  tales 
of  horror.  The  mind  was  stunned;  the  event  was  too 
enormous  to  be  grasped.  It  seemed  to  have  the  inevi- 
table and  fatalistic  quality  of  some  great  catastrophe  in 
nature ;  it  had  happened,  that  was  all.  It  was  not  to  be 
escaped;  it  was  there  before  one,  in  the  world,  like  an 
earthquake,  or  a  conflagration  or  a  tornado,  all  of  which 
in  its  effect  it  so  much  resembled.  Those  who  came  told 
their  stories  calmly,  sitting  there  with  blank,  impassive 
faces ;  though  in  the  eyes  that  had  looked  on  those  hor- 
rors the  terror  of  it  all  was  still  reflected.  One  was 
struck  by  their  lack  of  rancour ;  they  seemed  to  have  suf- 
fered too  deeply  for  that. 

Indeed,  all  through  that  experience,  then  and  after- 
wards, I  was  impressed  by  the  lack  of  passion  displayed 
by  all  those  who  had  so  terribly  suffered.  I  seldom 
heard  any  of  them  express  hatred  of  the  Germans  or  any 
desire  for  revenge;  they  never  even  spoke  of  them  as 
"BocTie"  and  were  by  no  means  in  such  a  fury  of  rage 
and  hate  for  revenge  as  I  have  observed  in  persons  safe 
in  luxurious  drawing-rooms  thousands  of  miles  away. 
None  of  them,  so  far  as  I  could  observe  or  learn,  ever 
acted  in  the  tragic  manner ;  there  were  no  heroics  and  no 
histrionics ;  they  did  not  demean  themselves  as  do  people 
in  the  cinema  or  in  the  romanticistic  novels.  I  have  read 
somewhere  a  psychological  explanation  of  this  phenome- 

157 


BELGIUM 

non  by  the  late  Professor  William  James,  who  observed 
it  and  made  interesting  notes  of  it  at  the  time  of  the  San 
Francisco  earthquake.  In  moments  of  great  danger, 
of  great  strain  and  tragedy,  people  are  simple  and 
natural;  they  do  not  act^  in  the  theatrical  sense  of  the 
word. 

It  was  thus  with  the  young  woman  who  on  that 
Tuesday,  about  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening,  when  Ger- 
man soldiers  suddenly  beat  on  the  door  of  her  home  in 
Louvain  and  her  father  and  brother  ran  to  open  it, 
heard  shots  and  had  not  seen  her  father  or  brother  since. 
She  took  her  eight-weeks'-old  baby  in  her  arms  and, 
climbing  the  garden-wall,  found  refuge  in  the  home  of 
a  friend  for  a  night  and  a  day,  while  on  all  sides  the 
houses  were  in  flames,  and  finally,  carrying  her  child,  she 
dodged  from  street  to  street,  holding  up  one  arm  and 
waving  a  white  handkerchief,  and  so  reached  the  village 
of  Leefdael  and  from  there,  Tervueren  and  at  last, 
Brussels. 

It  was  so  with  the  widow  of  sixty:  German  soldiers 
at  five  o'clock  on  Wednesday  morning,  turned  her  and 
her  niece,  a  young  woman  about  to  become  a  mother,  out 
of  her  house  half-clad,  and  drove  them  from  place  to 
place — the  guard-house  at  St.  Martin's  barracks,  the 
Place  du  Peuple,  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  and  finally  to  the 
Infantry  Barracks  in  the  Rue  de  Tirlemont.  They  were 
forced  every  now  and  then  to  kneel  on  the  ground  and 
to  raise  their  arms  above  their  heads,  while  the  Germans 
pressed  the  muzzles  of  guns  against  their  breasts  or 
kicked  them  or  struck  them;  then,  holding  them  as 
prisoners  in  the  barracks  until  Thursday,  the  Germans 
allowed  them  to  return  home,  to  find  their  house  burned 
to  the  ground  and  all  that  the  widow  had  in  the  world 

158 


MONSEIGNEUR  AND  THE  LIBRARY 

— shares  of  the  value  of  135,000  francs  contained  in  an 
iron  box  in  a  valise,  her  jewelry  and  diamonds  in  a  lit- 
tle hand  satchel  which  she  had  buried  in  the  garden — 
gone. 

It  was  so  with  a  young  Louvain  abbot  I  knew\  one  of 
the  group  in  that  tragic  scene  there  in  the  Square  be- 
fore the  railway  station — but  I  shall  tell  his  story  later 
on. 

I  might  go  on  indefinitely  recounting  experiences  such 
as  these;  they  would  fill  a  volume.  But  of  all  those  I 
heard,  of  all  those  that  were  written  out  for  me,  there 
is  one  that  remains  more  vivid  in  my  memory  than  all 
the  rest.  There  was  another  priest,  Monseigneur  de 
Becker,  Rector  of  the  American  College,  a  scholar  and 
an  educator.  He  was  one  of  those  priests  whose 
liberation  I  had  secured  on  Thursday  night,  and  in  the 
morning  he  came  with  two  others  to  thank  me.  He  had 
left  Louvain  when  the  exodus  was  ordered  on  Thursday ; 
he  had  gone  to  Tervueren  with  other  priests;  there  he 
was  arrested.  He  had  witnessed  the  murder  of 
Father  Dupierreux;  he  had  been  put  into  a  filthy  cart 
as  a  hostage,  and  sent  into  Brussels;  and  seen  thus,  the 
story  had  been  brought  to  our  Legation — "et  vous 
mfavez  sauve  la  vieT 

He  sat  there  at  my  table,  a  striking  figure — the  deli- 
cate face,  dignified  and  sad,  the  silver  hair,  the  long 
black  soutane  and  the  scarlet  sash,  in  his  white  hands  a 
well-worn  breviary.  There  were  two  other  figures,  dark, 
grave,  and  solemn — two  Jesuit  fathers  who  had  come 
with  him,  sitting  by  in  silent  sympathy.  They  had 
come  to  express  their  gratitude.  Monseigneur  described 
the  experience.  He  told  it  calmly,  logically,  con- 
nectedly, his  trained  mind  unfolding  the  events  in  or- 

159 


BELGIUM 

derly  sequence:  the  sound  of  firing  from  Herent,  the 
sudden  uprising  of  the  German  soldiers,  the  murder,  the 
lust,  the  loot,  the  fires,  the  pillage,  the  evacuation  and 
the  destruction  of  the  city,  and  all  that. 

The  home  of  his  father  had  been  burned,  and  the 
home  of  his  brother;  his  friends  and  his  colleagues  had 
been  murdered  before  his  eyes,  and  their  bodies  thrown 
into  a  cistern;  long  lines  of  his  townspeople,  confined 
in  the  railway-station,  had  been  taken  out  and  shot 
down;  the  church  of  St.  Peter's  was  destroyed,  the  Hotel 
de  Ville — the  finest  example  of  late  Gothic  extant — was 
doomed,  and  the  Halles  of  the  University  had  been  con- 
sumed. And  he  had  told  it  all  calmly.  But  there  in  the 
Halles  of  the  University  was  the  library;  its  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  volumes,  its  rare  and  ancient  manu- 
scripts, its  unique  collection  of  incunabula — all  had  been 
burned  deliberately,  to  the  last  scrap.  Monseigneur 
had  reached  this  point  in  his  recital;  he  had  begun  to 
pronounce  the  word  "hihliotheque" — he  had  said,  "la 
biblio  .  .  .  ,"  and  he  stopped  suddenly,  and  bit  his 
quivering  lip.  ''La  bib.  ..."  he  went  on — and  then, 
spreading  his  arms  on  the  table  before  him,  he  bowed 
his  head  upon  them  and  wept  aloud. 

We  sat  there  silent,  the  two  priests  and  I — le  cceur 
gros,  as  the  French  say — and  our  own  eyes  something 
more  than  moist. 

They  did  not  remain  long  after  that,  and  when  they 
went  away  Monseigneur  forgot  his  breviary  and  left 
it  lying  on  my  table.    And  I  let  it  lie  there. 


XXVIII 

THE  STORY  OF  LOUVAIN 

The  story  of  Louvain  will  not  be  fully  written  in  all 
its  details  of  individual  suffering  until  liberty  comes 
to  the  earth  again;  those  who  know  it  best  are  still  "in- 
side"— as  the  Belgians  call  their  prison.  And  people 
"inside"  do  not  lightly  give  testunony  or  write  their 
experiences  and  impressions,  even  in  private  diaries. 
Father  Dupierreux  learned  that.  .  .  .  But  from  time 
to  time  a  corner  of  the  dark  veil  was  lifted,  and  we  had 
glimpses  of  the  vast  and  appalling  tragedy  that  was 
being  enacted  by  those  sinister  figures  in  lurid  grey, 
with  torch  and  axe  and  gun,  there  amid  the  rolling 
smoke  and  the  infernal  glare. 

The  world  already  knows  the  story  in  its  essentials; 
the  truth,  with  its  divine  persistence,  is  never  deterred 
by  prisons  or  bayonets,  or  even  by  electrified  barbed 
wire  at  a  frontier.  Strange  that  autocracy  never  learns ! 
So  the  story  that  I  could  construct  out  of  all  those  im- 
pressions, those  glimpses  and  those  conversations  with  all 
sorts  of  people — the  rich  and  the  poor,  the  high  and  the 
lowly,  the  haute  bourgeoisie,  men  of  note  in  the  com- 
munity, educators,  lawyers,  priests,  officials,  men  of 
serious  and  orderly  minds,  accustomed  to  weighing  evi- 
dence— will  not  be  new;  it  will  resume  what  already  in 
the  main  has  been  told. 

The  Belgians  were  in  retreat,  falling  back  on  Ant- 
werp but  fighting  as  they  went — contesting,  with  Bel- 
gian stubbornness,  every  step  of  the  way.  The  German 

161 


BELGIUM 

army  had  entered  Louvain  in  force  on  the  afternoon  of 
Wednesday,  the  fifteenth  of  August.  Hostages  were 
seized  among  the  notables  of  the  city,  the  Bourgmestre, 
the  Rector  of  the  University,  the  Provincial  Councillor, 
Judges,  Aldermen,  etc.  An  affiche  was  at  once  pla- 
carded announcing  that  "in  case  a  single  arm  be  found, 
no  matter  in  what  house,  or  any  act  of  hostility  be  com- 
mitted against  our  troops,  our  transports,  our  telegraph 
lines,  our  railways,  or  if  any  one  harbours  francs-tireurs, 
the  culpable  and  the  hostages  who  are  arrested  in  each 
village  will  be  shot  without  pity.  Besides,  all  the  in- 
habitants of  the  villages  in  question  will  be  driven  out; 
the  villages,  and  even  cities  will  be  demolished  and 
burned.  If  this  happens  on  the  route  of  communication 
between  two  villages  the  same  methods  will  be  applied 
to  the  inhabitants  of  both."^ 


1  PROCLAMATION ! 

Habitants  ! 

Nous  ne  faisons  pas  la  guerre  centre  les  citoyens  mais  seulement 
contra  I'armee  ennemie.  Malgre  cela  les  troupes  allemandes  ont 
ete  attaque  en  grand  nombre  par  des  personnes  qui  n'appartien- 
nent  pas  a  I'arraee.  On  a  commis  des  actes  de  la  plus  lugubre 
cruante  non  seulement  centres  le  combattants  mais  aussi  contre  nos 
blesses  et  nos  medecins  qui  se  trouvent  sous  I'abri  de  la  croix  rouge. 

Pour  empecher  ces  brutalites  a  I'avenir  j'ordonne  ce  qui  suit: 

1.  Toute  personne  qui  n'appartienne  pas  a  I'armee  et  qui  soit 
trouvee  le  sarmes  entre  les  mains  sera  fusillee  a  I'instant;  elle  sera 
consideree  hors  du  droit  des  gens. 

2.  Tous  les  armes^  fusils,  pistolets,  brownings,  sabres,  poignards, 
etc.,  et  toute  matiere  explosible  doivent  etre  delivres  par  le  maire 
de  tout  village  ou  ville  au  commandant  des  troupes  allemandes. 

En  cas  qu'une  seule  arme  soit  trouvee  dans  n'importe  quelle 
maison  ou  que  quelqu'acte  d'histilite  soit  commis  contre  nos  troupes, 
nos  transports,  nos  lignes  telegraphiques,  nos  chemins  de  fer  ou 

162 


THE  STORY  OF  LOUVAIN 

This  sinister  poster  bore  no  date,  no  signature,  no 
writer's  name;  it  had  evidently  been  printed  in  Ger- 
many, in  advance  and  formed  part  of  the  equipment  of 
the  army,  as  bills  and  bill-posters  are  carried  by  a  travel- 
ling circus.  It  seemed  like  a  gratuitous  menace,  since  all 
the  revolvers  and  fowling-pieces  had  been  turned  in 
at  the  Hotel  de  Ville  in  response  to  the  Burgomaster's 
appeal. 

The  troops,  of  course,  were  quartered  on  the  in- 
habitants, with  the  usual  incidents.  Three  soldiers  raped 
a  girl  of  fifteen,  and  what  happened  generally  all  over 
Belgium  whenever  German  soldiers  were  quartered  in 
houses  of  delicacy  or  refinement,  wardrobes  were  broken, 
drawers  emptied  out  on  the  floor,  the  dainty  lingerie 
soiled  with  filth  in  an  unspeakable  manner.  The  cash- 
boxes  of  at  least  two  banks  were  rifled,  though,  it  is  said, 
this  money  was  later  restored  by  the  German  authorities. 
Some  stray  shots  seem  to  have  been  fired  by  German 
soldiers,  who  went  into  shops  and  "requisitioned"  for 
their  personal  needs,  giving  in  return  "hons  de  requisi- 
tion, "To  be  paid  for  by  the  City  of  Louvain"  or  "To  be 
paid  for  by  the  Belgian  Government."     Some  with 

qu'on    donne    I'asile    aux    fractireurs,   les    coupables    et    les    otages 
qui  sont  arretes  dans  chaque  village  seront  fusilles  sans  pitie. 

Or  cela  tous  les  habitants  des  villages,  etc,  en  question  seront 
chasses,  les  villages  et  les  villes  memes  seront  demolis  et  brules.  Si 
cela  arrive  sur  la  route  de  communication  entre  deux  villages  on 
agira  de  la  meme  maniere  contre  les  habitants  des  deux  villages. 

J'attends  que  les  maires  ainsi  que  la  population  voudront  assurer 
par  leur  prudente  surveillance  et  conduite  la  siirete  de  nos  troupes 
ainsi  que  la  leur. 

Dans  le  cas  contraire  les  mesures  indiquees  ci-dessus  entreront 
en  viguer. — On  ne  donnera  aucun  pardon ! 

Le  General  Commandant  en  Chef. 
163 


BELGIUM 

lugubrious  humour  read:  "Good  to  be  shot" — in  Ger- 
man, which  the  Louvainist  shopkeepers  could  not  read. 

All  the  felons  of  German  nationality  had  been  re- 
leased from  the  prisons;  there  were  already  bands  of 
half-savage  vagrants  following  the  army.  On  Monday, 
the  twenty-fourth,  the  German  wounded  had  been  evacu- 
ated from  Louvain,  and  that  evening  there  were  a  few 
desultory  shots  in  the  Chaussee  de  Tirlemont  and  the 
Rue  de  la  Station,  the  route  along  which  von  Kluck's 
army  day  after  day  was  pushing  on  toward  the  west. 

However,  things  went  well  enough  for  the  time,  and 
the  Louvainist  could  make  a  little  moue,  shrug  his 
shoulders,  and  observe,  "C'est  la  guerre!" 

Then  came  Tuesday,  the  twenty-fifth,  a  sinister  date 
in  the  annals  of  Louvain.  An  order  was  issued  com- 
manding all  the  inhabitants  to  be  indoors  at  eight  o'clock 
in  the  evening,  and  that  all  cafes  and  public  places  be 
closed ;  doors  were  to  be  left  unlocked  and  lights  were  to 
burn  in  the  windows.  All  that  afternoon  heavy  detach- 
•ments  of  troops  were  arriving  at  the  railway-station ;  by 
evening  it  had  been  estimated  thdt  ten  thousand  soldiers 
were  in  town.  They  were  quartered  on  the  inhabitants ; 
the  hotels  about  the  Place  de  la  Station  were  filled  with 
officers.  Late  in  the  afternoon  the  sound  of  cannonad- 
ing was  heard  from  the  west,  in  the  direction  of  the 
village  of  Herent. 

That  afternoon  the  Belgian  army  had  made  a  sortie 
from  the  defenses  of  Antwerp.  There  had  been  a  sharp 
fight  at  Malines,  and  the  Belgians  had  had  the  better 
of  it,  driving  the  Germans  out  of  Malines  and  back 
along  the  road  toward  Louvain;  it  was  the  noise  of  this 
battle  that  Louvain  heard  that  afternoon  from  the  di- 
rection  of   Herent.      At   seven   o'clock   that   evening 

164 


THE  STORY  QF  LOUVAIN 

Herent  was  in  flames.  The  Germans,  retiring  on  Lou- 
vain,  had  reached  the  Porte  de  Mahnes;  night  was  fall- 
ing, and  German  reinforcements,  j  ust  then  leaving  Lou- 
vain,  met  them,  and  there  in  the  twilight  the  two  parties, 
each  mistaking  the  other  for  Belgians, opened  fire.  There 
was  instant  panic,  the  usual  cry  "Man  hat  geschossenrj 
riderless  horses  and  terror-stricken  soldiers  streamed 
into  the  town,  and  then,  and  in  that  manner,  the  awful 
tragedy  began.  The  officers  of  the  staff  were  dining, 
and  those  who  know  something  of  the  Belgian  cuisine — 
before  the  war — and  of  the  place  their  famous  old  Bur- 
gundy holds  in  the  estimation  of  the  people,  can  im- 
agine what  a  festin  de  geants  there  would  be  when  such 
trenchermen  as  those  German  officers  sat  themselves 
down  at  table  in  those  restaurants.  They  were  digest- 
ing their  dinner  when  the  alarm  came  to  them,  and  Lou- 
vain  was  doomed. 

There  was  a  woman  whose  husband  was  away  in 
the  Belgian  army.  For  a  week  the  German  officers  had 
been  quartered  in  her  house.  She  had  just  given  them, 
as  she  said,  "a  very  good  dinner"  to  one  of  the  officers. 
He  had  got  up  from  the  table;  it  was  about  seven 
o'clock.  Suddenly  a  bugle  blew — the  alert,  the  officer 
said,  and  he.  must  go.  As  he  went  out  of  the  house  he 
said: 

"Madame,  you  are  here  alone  with  your  two 
daughters.  I  must  go  immediately,  and  I  should  say 
nothing  to  you  but  you  have  shown  me  a  great  deal  of 
humanity,  and  so,  confidentially,  I  warn  you  that  if  this 
night  you  hear  in  the  city  a  rifle  or  a  gun-shot,  take 
refuge  at  once  in  the  cellars,  for  it  is  going  to  be  ter- 
rible." 

The  officer  went,  and  the  woman  ran  out,  warned  her 

165 


BELGIUM 

neighbours,  hurried  home  again,  to  be  indoors  by  eight 
o'clock.  The  town  was  still,  the  streets  deserted,  the 
doors  closed;  no  one  was  abroad.  The  order  had  been 
well  obeyed. 

At  five  minutes  after  eight  the  woman  heard  shots 
fired  in  the  Rue  de  Tirlemont.  Others  heard  shots  at 
about  the  same  time,  at  other  parts  of  the  city.  The 
first  thought  of  the  inhabitants  was  one  that  ran  through 
the  town  with  a  thrill  of  joy;  they  thought  it  meant  de- 
liverance, that  the  English  and  the  French  had  come. 
And  then,  all  over  the  city,  the  soldiers  began  firing 
wildly  at  the  fa9ades  of  the  closed  houses.  The  people 
ran  to  their  cellars  in  terror;  the  soldiers  beat  in  the 
doors,  turned  the  people  into  the  street,  shot  them  down, 
set  fire  to  the  houses.  There  were  riderless  horses  gal- 
loping about.  A  mad,  blind,  demoniac  rage  seemed  to 
have  laid  hold  on  the  Germans,  and  they  went  through 
the  streets  killing,  slaying,  burning,  looting,  torturing 
and  massacring,  and  for  three  terrible  days  the  awful 
tragedy  was  enacted,  with  such  scenes  as  appal  the  im- 
agination. 

It  was  not  only  in  the  Rue  de  Tirlemont,  as  the  woman 
said,  that  the  fusillade  began,  but,  by  a  significant  coin- 
cidence, other  fusillades  broke  out  simultaneously  at 
various  points  in  the  city — at  the  Porte  de  Bruxelles,  in 
the  Rue  Leopold,  in  the  Rue  Marie-Therese,  and  in  the 
Rue  des  Joyeuses  Entrees.  In  the  Palace  de  la  Station, 
filled  with  troops  just  detrained  and  crowded  with  army 
wagons,  there  was  a  panic;  the  soldiers  began  shooting 
right  and  left,  doubtless  wounding  many  of  their  own. 

The  Place  de  la  Station  is  the  square  before  the  rail- 
way station  and  around  it  on  three  sides  are  hotels  and 
cafes.  These  hotels  from  the  day  of  the  entry  of  the 
I  166 


THE  STORY  OF  LOUVAIN 

Germans  into  Louvain  had  been  occupied  by  officers  and 
soldiers;  they  had  been  ransacked  time  and  again  from 
cellar  to  garret,  to  see  that  no  one  was  in  hiding  and  that 
there  were  no  arms.  The  German  officers  spent  their 
money  freely.  The  echauffouree  in  the  Place  de  la 
Station  was  the  most  intense  of  all  those  that  suddenly 
broke  out  that  evening;  there  was  another  in  the  Place 
du  Peuple — the  quietest,  most  aristocratic  square  in  the 
city,  where  German  troops  were  waiting  under  the  thick 
foliage  of  the  chestnut  trees.  The  madness  spread  to 
the  Rue  de  Diest,  and  finally  to  the  Grand'  Place.  The 
grey  soldiers  were  running  everywhere,  firing  right  and 
left  at  random,  through  the  streets  that  were  so 
strangely  illuminated  for  their  own  destruction.  On  the 
order  of  their  chiefs  the  Germans  set  fire  to  the  houses, 
spraying  salons  with  inflammable  liquid,  (using  the  ap- 
paratus they  had  for  that  purpose,  lighting  and  fling- 
ing in  their  incendiary  pastels — breaking  in  windows 
with  the  buts  of  their  rifles,  that  a  draught  might  be  pro- 
vided for  the  flames.  The  inmates  of  the  houses  thus 
doomed  ran  out  only  to  be  shot  down  at  their  own  door, 
or  took  refuge  in  their  cellars,  to  be  burned  to  death  and 
buried  beneath  the  ruins  of  their  homes.  Men  trying 
to  escape  over  the  roofs  were  fired  at  by  the  soldiers  in 
the  streets;  women,  their  babies  in  their  arms,  hugging 
the  walls,  tried  to  reach  some  place  of  safety. 

The  Halles  of  the  University,  erected  in  1317,  by  the 
Clothworkers  as  the  Cloth  Hall  (Halle  aux  Draps), 
which  in  1431  became  the  principal  seat  of  the  Uni- 
versity, had  come  to  be  devoted  almost  exclusively  to 
the  libraries  of  the  University.  Therein  were  stored 
incomparable  riches — more  than  230,000  volumes,  be- 
sides 750  manuscripts  dating  from  the  Middle  Ages,  and 

167 


BELGIUM 

perhaps  the  finest  collection  of  incunabula  extant,  more 
than  a  thousand  of  them.  The  whole  library,  with  all 
its  riches  was  deliberately  and  systematically  burned; 
only  the  naked  walls  of  the  old  Hall  could  resist  the 
fury  of  the  flames.  No  wonder  the  old  scholar  broke 
down  and  wept! 

The  ancient  church  of  St.  Peter  was  set  on  fire.  The 
flames  of  the  holocaust  lighted  up  the  sky;  the  glare 
could  be  seen  at  Tervueren,  fifteen  kilometers  away. 

Early  in  the  evening  the  Rev.  Father  Parys, 
a  Dominican,  Dr.  Meulemans  and  the  druggist  De 
Coninck,  had  gone  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville  to  ask  for  per- 
mits to  go  about  the  city  during  the  night  for  the  service 
of  the  Dominican  ambulance  in  the  Rue  Juste-Lipse. 
Major  von  Manteuffel,  who  was  in  command,  was  about 
to  make  out  the  passports  when  the  firing  began.  Von 
Manteufl'el  at  once  ordered  their  arrest  as  hostages,  as 
well  as  that  of  Alderman  Schmidt.  Out  of  the  score 
or  more  hostages  held  by  the  Germans,  two  or  more  were 
selected  each  day,  and  the  others,  provisionally,  for  that 
day,  relieved,  so  that  they  took  turns  in  serving.  The 
two  oflicial  hostages  for  that  day  were  Monseigneur 
Coenraets,  Vice-Rector  of  the  University,  and  M.  Maes; 
they  were,  of  course,  already  in  the  Hotel  de  Ville. 
These  six  hostages,  then,  were  made  to  stand  in  the  open 
windows  with  their  backs  to  the  street,  so  that  they 
would  be  the  first  to  be  shot  if  any  balls  were  fired  into 
the  room. 

Later  General  von  Boehn  arrived  from  the  front,  and 
through  an  interpreter  harangued  the  hostages,  telling 
them  that  if  the  shooting  continued  they  would  all  be 
hanged,  the  city  bombarded  and  forced  to  pay  a  levy  of 
twenty  million  francs.    Finally  Monseigneur  Coenraets 

168 


THE  STORY  OF  LOUVAIN 

and  Father  Parys  were  ordered  to  proclaim  this  menace 
to  the  people,  to  exhort  them  to  be  calm  and  to  cease 
firing  on  the  German  troops.  They  went,  accompanied 
by  von  ManteufFel  and  a  platoon  of  soldiers,  on  their 
ungrateful  and  impossible  mission. 

Monseigneur  Coenraets  was  a  man  over  sixty  and 
already  aged  by  toil  and  constant  study.  Broken  by  emo- 
tion and  by  the  horrors  that  were  going  on  about  him, 
he  was  forced  by  the  score  of  soldiers  who  surrounded 
him,  and  by  the  two  officers  who  cocked  their  revolvers 
always  at  his  head,  to  march  through  those  streets,  fol- 
lowed by  women  and  children  who  had  known  and  re- 
vered him  all  their  lives,  lifting  their  hands,  weeping, 
praying,  swearing  to  him  that  they  would  do  all  they 
could  to  save  him  and  the  town.  His  voice  was  choked 
with  smoke  and  dust,  he  was  ready  to  faint,  yet  hour 
after  hour  he  must  march  about,  the  dignified  Vice-Rec- 
tor of  the  old  University,  with  the  Dominican  friar,  halt 
at  every  street-corner  and  recite  the  Proclamation,  in 
French  and  in  Flemish — as  though  he  had  already 
judged  his  fellow-citizens!  as  though  he  were  implor- 
ing his  own  to  desist  from  crimes  of  which  they  were  only 
the  victims! 

Near  the  statue  of  Juste-Lipse,  there  in  the  Rue  de 
la  Station,  there  appeared  a  figure  that  flits  across  the 
scene  of  the  Louvain  tragedy  like  some  actor  in  the 
cinema — Dr.  Georg  Berghausen,  a  young  surgeon  in 
the  Landsturm.  He  came  running  in  wild  excitement, 
and  as  he  met  the  company  of  hostages,  cried  out 
that  a  German  soldier  had  just  been  killed  by  a  shot 
fired  from  the  residence  of  David  Fishback,  and  he 
shouted  to  the  soldiers : 

"The  blood  of  the  entire  population  of  Louvain  is 

169 


BELGIUM 

not  worth  a  drop  of  the  blood  of  one  German  soldier." 

They  went  on.  One  man  says  that  one  of  the  Ger- 
man soldiers  threw  an  inflammable  pastel  into  the  house 
of  David  Fishback,  and  that  it  flared  into  flames;  I  do 
not  know.  But  a  moment  later,  there  at  the  foot  of  the 
statue  of  Juste-Lipse,  lay  the  body  of  David  Fishback, 
an  old  man  of  eighty-two,  beside  that  of.  his  son.  The 
old  coachman,  Joseph  Vandermosten,  had  entered  the 
house  to  try  to  save  the  life  of  his  master,  but  he  did  not 
return;  his  body  was  found  the  next  day  amidst  the 
ruins. 

Nearly  three  hundred  persons  were  gathered  in  the 
Place  de  la  Station ;  "most  were  weeping."  In  the  midst 
of  this  inferno,  amid  the  roar  and  glare  of  flames,  with 
the  crackling  of  rifle-shots,  the  steady  cluck-cluck-cluck 
of  machine-guns,  making  a  noise  like  a  riveter,  and  that 
most  hideous  of  all  sounds,  the  ululations  of  a  mob,  domi- 
nating all  the  rest,  the  massacre  and  the  incendiarism 
went  on. 

It  continued  all  through  the  night;  toward  morning 
the  great  tower  of  St.  Peter's  Church  burst  into  flames, 
but  the  soldiers  would  not  allow  the  people  to  enter 
the  church  to  save  it.  The  great  bell  fell  with  a  crash. 
And  dawn  came,  and  another  day,  but  the  horror 
went  on. 

It  was  the  morning  of  Wednesday,  the  twenty-sixth ; 
German  soldiers,  drunk,  black  with  the  soot  of  their  in- 
cendiarism, were  going  through  the  streets  and  bursting 
into  houses,  crying  "Heraus!",  turning  the  cowering 
inmates  into  the  streets,  with  such  blows  and  brutalities 
as  made  the  experience  of  each  person  a  calvary.  Often 
in  these  irruptions,  obsessed  by  the  idea  of  francs- 
tireurs,    they    would    shout,    "Man    hat   geschossen!" 

170 


THE  STORY  OF  LOUVAIN 

The  people  were  thus  assembled  in  tragic  groups  be- 
tween the  tottering  walls  of  burning  houses;  marched 
through  choking,  suffocating  streets  that  were  strewn 
with  the  dead  bodies  of  men  and  horses — the  women  and 
children  weeping,  screaming,  imploring,  and  the  sol- 
diers compelling  them  to  walk  with  their  hands  up,  or 
making  them  kneel  or  run,  or  kicking  them  or  striking 
them  with  their  fists  or  with  the  butts  of  their  guns, 
herding  them  through  the  streets,  in  the  midst  of  the 
smoking  ruins;  while  other  soldiers,  with  wine-bottles 
under  their  arms,  went  reeling  past  crying  out  at  the 
captives:  ''Hund!    Scliwein!    Schweinhund!" 

Now  and  then  the  soldiers  would  tell  the  people  that 
the  place  of  execution  had  been  reached ;  then  they  would 
change  their  minds  and  seek  another  place — a  species 
of  torture  that  was  practiced  all  over  Belgium.  And 
now  and  then  German  soldiers  fired  at  them  from  the 
upper  windows  of  the  houses  which  they  were  sacking. 

Finally,  however,  after  having  been  marched  all  over 
town — one  group  was  marched  to  Herent  and  back — 
they  were  assembled  in  the  Place  de  la  Station ;  old  men 
and  old  women  and  young  women  and  little  children; 
they  were  bound  hand  and  foot,  then  tied  up  in  a  great 
human  packet  by  a  long  rope,  so  that  they  could  not 
move.  There  were  by  evening  more  than  a  thousand 
persons  huddled  there  in  the  Square.  A  drizzling  rain 
was  falling  soaking  them  to  the  skin.  They  had  noth- 
ing to  eat  or  to  drink.  Now  and  then  a  man  would  be 
shot;  oftener  the  soldiers  would  lead  some  one  off,  a 
volley  would  be  fired,  and  those  in  the  Square  would 
be  told  that  the  man  had  been  killed  and  that  a  like  fate 
awaited  them.  One  man,  bound  round  and  round  by 
cords,  was  struck  by  an  officer  several  times,  knocked 

171 


BELGIUM 

down,  made  to  stand  up,  then  knocked  down  again;  he 
was  hung  by  the  waist  to  a  lamp  post ;  finally,  after  all 
this  torture,  he  was  hung  by  the  neck. 

The  young  abbot  whom  I  mentioned  had  been  given 
a  safe  conduct  to  leave  the  city,  and,  on  Thursday  morn- 
ing, had  gone  along  the  Chaussee  d'Aerschot  as  far  as 
Rotselaer;  there  he  encountered  a  group  of  soldiers, 
who  refused  to  look  at  his  papers  but  arrested  him  and 
took  him  back  to  Louvain  with  other  prisoners,  and 
finally,  toward  evening,  to  the  Place  de  la  Station.  He 
had  been  kicked,  cuffed,  spat  upon,  struck  with  the  butts 
of  guns;  his  hands  were  tied  behind  him  with  barbed 
wire,  and  there  at  the  Place  de  la  Station  he  was  forced 
to  remain  standing  all  night,  not  even  allowed  to  lean 
against  the  wall — and  this  for  hours,  with  repeated  in- 
sults and  personal  outrage,  while  his  townsmen  one  by 
one  were  led  out  and  shot,  there  at  the  side  of  the  Square, 
"near  the  house  of  Mr.  Hemaide." 

They  witnessed  many  executions  and  heard  those 
volleys  which,  as  they  assumed,  meant  many  more.  To- 
ward morning  they  saw  a  priest  shot,  and  were  then  told 
that  their  time  had  come.  The  young  abbot  pronounced 
a  collective  absolution  for  all  those  about  him — ego  vos 
absolvo  a  peccatis  vestris.    Ire  nomine.  .  .  . 

But  no;  soon  after  his  hands  were  loosened  he  was 
allowed  to  go  into  the  waiting-room  of  the  station,  where 
he  was  held  until  Saturday,  and  then  a  German  sergeant 
took  pity  on  him  and  told  him  he  could  go. 

And  so  for  another  day  and  another  night  the  mad- 
ness went  on — the  murder,  the  looting,  the  sacking,  the 
riot,  the  burning,  and  the  lust;  with  soldiers  pillaging 
the  houses,  bearing  the  wine  in  great  baskets  out  of 
the  cellars,  to  be  guzzled  in  the  street,  while  men  and 

172 


THE  STORY  OF  LOUVAIN 

women  and  children  were  shot  down  and  their  bodies 
left  to  lie  in  gutters  or  on  the  smoking  ruins,  or  thrown 
into  foul  cesspools. 

Then  on  Thursday  morning  the  twenty- seventh  of 
August,  at  nine  o'clock,  the  Germans  announced  that  it 
was  necessary  to  bombard  the  city  and  they  issued  an 
order  to  all  the  inhabitants  to  leave  at  once.  It  was  but 
another  comedie,  for  there  was  no  bombardment,  and 
probably  no  intention  of  any;  a  gun  was  fired  two  or 
three  times,  that  was  all.  But  again  the  soldiers  went 
from  house  to  house  ordering  the  inhabitants  to  leave, 
giving  them  no  time  to  prepare,  reraising  them  permis- 
sion to  take  anything  with  them.  And  then  began  that 
awful  exodus.  On  all  the  roads  leading  from  Louvain 
the  people  went — old  men,  women,  children,  nuns, 
priests,  the  sick,  even  women  just  arisen  from  child- 
birth— driven  like  cattle.  Ten  thousand  of  them  in  one 
body  were  forced  to  march  to  Tirlemont,  eighteen  kilo- 
metres from  Louvain;  perhaps  as  many  found  their  way 
to  Brussels.  It  was  a  tragic  hegira.  INIany  fell  by  the 
roadside;  some  went  mad;  some  wandered  for  days  in 
the  fields  and  woods  around ;  some  drowned  themselves 
in  streams.  The  members  of  the  Garde  Civique,  and 
hundreds  of  women  and  children  were  sent  to  a  prison 
camp  at  Miinster,  in  Germany,  and  kept  there  for 
months,  exhibited  as  specimens  of  the  Belgian  francs- 
tireurs.  No  one  was  spared,  unless  it  were  the  occu- 
pants of  the  houses  in  the  demesne  of  the  Due  d'Aren- 
berg  of  the  old  German  family  of  that  name,  at 
Heverle-ter-Bank,  where  the  Duke  has  a  chateau. 
Many  of  these  houses  were  marked  in  chalk:  "Nicht 
Plunder  en' — "Don't  pillage." 

The  priests  whom  Villalobar  and  I  succeeded  in  liber- 

173 


BELGIUM 

ating  that  same  night  were  in  the  throng  that  had  been 
driven  out  along  the  road  to  the  west  of  Louvain  to- 
ward Tervueren.  They  were  nearly  ninety,  among  them 
the  Rector,  the  Vice-Rector  and  the  professors  of  the 
University,  and  the  Rector  of  the  American  Col- 
lege, and  there  were  about  seventy  members  of  a 
Jesuit  community  at  Louvain,  which  for  days  had 
given  food  and  lodging  to  German  officers,  had 
nursed  the  wounded — German  and  Belgian — and  buried 
the  dead.  Some  of  them  wore  the  brassard  of  the  Red 
Cross  bearing  the  German  seal.  They  set  out,  on  foot 
of  course,  for  Brussels;  they  had  reached  Tervueren. 
There  the  soldiers  halted  them,  searched  them,  taking 
away  everything  they  had,  (including  their  papers  of 
identity)  and  tore  the  Red  Cross  brassards  from  their 
arms.  The  soldiers,  who  were  in  masses,  mocked,  in- 
sulted, and  menaced  them — with  empty  bottles,  with 
guns,  and  with  bayonets;  one  soldier  tried  to  slip  a 
cartridge  into  the  pocket  of  the  cassock  of  one  of  the 
priests,  and  two  of  the  priests  were  pushed  into  a  ditch 
by  an  angry  Oberleutnant  and  ordered  to  remain  there. 
"From  that  moment,"  said  the  Jesuit  father  who, 
calmly  and  in  his  stately  French,  told  me  of  his  experi- 
ences— I  translate  his  words  almost  literally — "we  had 
the  impression,  which  was  not  denied  by  the  events, 
that  it  was  the  rule  of  the  arbitrary  and  that  the  officers 
were  abandoning  the  clerics  to  the  invective  and  hatred 
of  the  soldiers.  The  latter  indulged  themselves  in  such 
acts,  attitudes  and  conduct  as,  from  the  point  of  disci- 
pline alone,  seemed  very  strange  on  the  part  of  subordi- 
nates in  the  presence  of  their  chiefs.  The  officers  did 
not  make  a  gesture  or  a  sign  that  would  put  an  end  to 
it,  and  their  attitude  was  equal  to  an  approval  or  an 

174 


THE  STORY  OF  LOUVAIN 

encouragement;  several  of  them  even  joined  their  invec- 
tives to  those  of  their  subordinates." 

The  priests  were  assembled  in  a  field  and  made  to 
sit  back  to  back  on  the  grass,  while  the  passing  soldiers 
constantly  menaced  them  with  death.  An  hour  passed 
and  an  officer  came,  counted  the  prisoners,  divided  them 
into  groups,  and  ordered  the  first  group  to  stand  in  line. 

"All  the  members  of  this  group  are  hostages,"  said 
the  officer,  "and  will  accompany  a  column  of  supplies. 
If  a  single  shot  is  fired  against  the  column  all  will  be 
shot." 

While  they  were  waiting  for  the  column  to  arrive, 
the  Oberleutnant  suddenly  remembered  the  two  priests 
whom  he  had  thrown  into  the  ditch.  One  of  them  was 
Father  Dupierreux,  a  young  ecclesiastic  student.  The 
soldiers,  in  searching  him,  found  a  private  diary.  He 
still  had  his  Red  Cross  brassard,  and  this  was  vio- 
lently torn  from  his  arm,  and  the  Oberleutnant,  gesticu- 
lating wildly  and  shouting  insults,  cried  out  in  Ger- 
man: 

"A  Red  Cross!  A  Red  Cross!  We  will  give  him  a 
Red  Cross!" 

And  he  ordered  that  a  large  cross  be  traced  in  red 
chalk  on  Father  Dupierreux 's  back,  and  when  it  was 
done  he  said: 

"His  case  is  settled!"    "Son  affaire  est  reglee' ' 

And  so  it  was.  Two  soldiers  led  Father  Dupierreux 
forward.  He  was  pale  but  he  was  calm ;  he  held  a  crucifix 
in  his  hands.  An  officer  and  a  non-commissioned  officer 
followed.  A  priest  with  a  knowledge  of  German  was 
called  upon  to  translate  from  Father  Dupierreux's 
diary. 

"If  you  omit  or  change  the  sense  of  a  single  word  you 

175 


BELGIUM 

will  be  shot  too ;"  said  the  Oberleutnant.  The  priest  read 
a  few  lines  referring  to  the  burning  of  the  University 
of  Louvain  and  the  Library  as  acts  worthy  of  the 
Vandals,  and  then  the  Oberleutnant  stopped  the 
reading. 

Father  Dupierreux  was  ordered  to  step  a  few  paces 
in  advance ;  a  firing  squad  was  detailed ;  the  priests  were 
ordered  to  fix  their  eyes  upon  the  young  priest  as  he 
stood  there,  crucifix  in  hand ;  the  order  was  given  to  fire ; 
the  volley  flashed;  and  Father  Dupierreux  fell  to  the 
ground,  dead. 

It  was  about  two  o'clock.  The  priests  were  loaded 
into  great  filthy  carts,  used  ordinarily  for  transporting 
swine,  or  onto  transport  wagons.  There  were  five 
groups  of  them.  .  .  .  The  procession  started,  and  for 
six  hours,  from  two  to  eight,  from  Tervueren  to  Hal, 
passing  through  the  suburbs  of  Brussels,  the  carts  nun- 
bled — the  priests,  as  one  of  them  said,  shown  "like  crimi- 
nals to  the  population."  They  were  given  nothing  to 
eat ;  not  allowed  even  a  drink  of  water.  As  they  passed 
through  Brussels  they  were  seen  and  recognized;  and 
two  men,  their  faces  blanched  with  horror,  came  to  the 
Legation  to  report  it.  Near  Hal  they  were  overtaken 
by  General  von  Liittwitz's  orders  and  released.  .  .  . 

Back  in  Louvain  however,  the  rage  was  abating. 
Friday  the  twenty-eighth  there  was,  if  not  calm,  such  a 
diminution  of  the  storm  that  it  seemed,  after  all  the  hor- 
ror, like  calm.  It  was  then  that  Gibson  and  BuUe,  Sven 
Pousette,  the  Swedish  Charge  des  Affaires,  and  Blount 
drove  out  to  Louvain  in  Blount's  little  car.  They  found 
evidences  of  the  fury  of  the  destruction,  houses  still 
blazing  and  soldiers  pillaging  them.     While  they  were 

176 


THE  STORY  OF  LOUVAIN 

standing  in  the  Rue  de  la  Station,  talking  to  a  German 
officer,  shots  were  suddenly  fired  and  the  German  offi- 
cer led  them  to  the  railway-station,  where  for  half  an 
hour  they  took  refuge  in  the  freight  depot.  During  all 
that  time  they  could  hear  firing  outside.  The  Germans 
claimed  that  they  were  being  fired  upon  by  Belgian 
civilians  from  the  upper  windows  of  houses  in  the  Rue  de 
la  Station,  but  the  Belgians  of  Lou  vain  always  insisted 
that  the  firing  from  the  upper  windows  was  done  by 
German  soldiers  placed  there  for  the  purpose  of  im- 
pressing the  diplomatic  representatives  of  neutral 
Powers. 

I  do  not  know  who  it  was  that  fired.  German  soldiers 
for  three  days  had  been  firing  from  the  upper  windows 
of  houses  they  were  looting,  and  they  did  it  after- 
wards. If  after  three  days  of  such  horrors,  of  such 
murderous  destruction,  any  Belgians  could  have  been 
found  in  the  upper  stories  of  houses  and  were  still  armed 
and  firing,  of  that  the  Germans  have  never  produced 
any  evidence,  and  they  made  no  arrests,  did  not  even 
shoot  any  one,  at  that  time,  on  such  a  charge. 

The  town,  indeed,  was  almost  deserted,  though  the 
shooting  and  the  burning  and  the  pillage  continued  until 
the  thirtieth  of  August,  when  Professor  Neerinckx,  of 
the  University  of  Louvain,  entered  into  negotiations 
with  Major  von  Manteuffel,  organized  a  temporary 
communal  administration,  and  succeeded  in  re-establish- 
ing some  sort  of  authority.  Instruction  were  issued  to 
the  troops  by  Major  von  Manteuff*el  to  cease  firing, 
and  order  was  restored.  It  was  forbidden  to  burn  homes 
any  more ;  placards  were  posted  on  them,  or  on  certain 
of  them,  bearing  these  words : 

177 


BELGIUM 

"Dieses  Haus  ist  zu  schutsen.  Es  ist  streng  verboten,  ohne  Ge- 
nehmigung  der  Kommandantur,  Haiiser  zu  betreten  oder  in  Brand 
zu   setzen. — Die   Etappen-Kommandantur." 

"This  house  must  be  protected.  It  is  strictly  forbidden  to  enter 
the  houses  or  to  burn  them  without  the  consent  of  the  Kom- 
mandantur." ^ 

^  The  number  of  citizens  of  Louvain  slain  was  210,  of  both 
sexes  and  all  ages,  from  infants  of  three  months  to  persons  of 
eighty  years.  Several  thousand  were  taken  prisoner;  over  600, 
of  which  100  were  women  and  children,  were  deported  to  Germany. 
The  Germans  report  that  5  officers,  23  men  and  95  horses  were 
killed  or  wounded.  Two  thousand  houses  were  burned,  together 
with  the  buildings  of  the  University,  the  Library  with  its  precious 
manuscripts,  and  the  Church  of  St.  Peter. 


XXIX 

SOME  GERMAN  TESTIMONY 

General  von  Luttwitz  had  heard  that  the  son  of 
the  Burgomaster  of  Louvain  had  killed  a  German  gen- 
eral. But  the  Burgomaster  of  Louvain  had  no  son, 
and  no  German  general  or  other  officer  was  killed  at 
Louvain. 

The  story  of  a  general  shot  by  the  son  of  a  burgo- 
master was  a  variant  of  the  account  of  a  tragedy  that 
had  occurred  in  Aerschot  on  the  nineteenth,  where  the 
fifteen-year-old  son  of  the  Burgomaster  had  been  killed 
by  a  firing  squad,  not  because  he  had  shot  a  general,  but 
because  a  colonel  had  been  shot,  probably  by  Belgian  sol- 
diers retreating  through  the  town.  This  story  flew  all 
over  Belgium,  with  embellishments  and  improvements; 
the  colonel  became  a  general,  thereby  increasing  the 
gravity  of  the  offense,  and  the  boy  became  a  man,  in- 
creasing the  responsibility,  and  finally,  by  the  time  the 
story  got  down  into  the  Province  of  Namur,  the  ^on  of 
the  Burgomaster  became  the  daughter  of  the  Burgo- 
master, thus  intensifying  the  horror  of  the  deed.  The 
tale  was  only  a  week  old  when  General  von  Liittwitz 
heard  it.  But  the  story  has  been  best  told  by  the  one 
who  knew  it  best,  Madame  Tielemans,  wife  of  the  Bur- 
gomaster of  Aerschot,  whose  boy — telling  her  to  be 
brave — was  torn  from  her  and  shot,  as  was  her  husband.^ 

^  I    have    made    the    following    translation    of    the    declaration 
of  Mme.  Tielmans,  widow  of  the  Burgomaster  of  Aerschot: 

"Here  are  the  facts  as  I  saw  them,  when  the  Germans  seized  Aer- 

179 


BELGIUM 

The  story  of  the  son  of  the  Burgomaster  and  the 
shooting  of  the  General  did  not  serve  long  as  the  reason 

schot.  About  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  August  19th,  I  was 
unable  to  go  to  church  with  my  children  because  bullets  were  falling 
in  the  streets:  we  installed  ourselves  in  a  drawing-room  facing  the 
Grand'  Place  (City  Hall  Square).  Toward  nine  o'clock  Belgian 
soldiers  appeared  from  one  of  the  side  streets,  their  faces  covered 
with  blood,  supporting  one  another.  I  opened  the  window  and  in- 
quired what  was  happening.  'We  are  retreating,  the  Germans  are 
pursuing  us,'  they  cried.  A  few  minutes  later,  the  Grand'  Place 
was  covered  with  German  troops ;  seeing  which,  my  son  lowered  the 
shade;  they  immediately  fired  into  the  window;  a  bullet  ricochetted 
and  wounded  him  in  the  leg.  , 

"About  ten  o'clock,  the  German  commander  ordered  my  husband 
to  the  City  Hall;  when  he  arrived,  they  called  him  a  'Schwein- 
hund'  and,  with  the  greatest  brutality,  exacted  the  lowering  of  the 
national  flag;  he  was  then  obliged  to  translate  into  German  the 
posters  that  had  been  placarded  in  town,  requiring  the  surrender 
of  firearms  and  advising  the  population  to  keep  quiet. 

"Meanwhile,  officers  visited  me,  asking  for  hospitality :  there  were 
three  of  them:  a  General  (Stenger,  commanding  8th  infantry  bri- 
gade) and  two  aides;  they  were  conducted  to  apartments;  their 
rooms  faced  the  Grand'  Place;  they  could  watch  the  troops  resting 
there.  Shortly  after  they  went  out;  the  chambermaid  called  me  to 
see  the  condition  in  which  they  had  left  their  rooms ;  the  worst  burg- 
lar would  not  have  upset  the  furniture  as  the  Germans  had  done; 
not  a  single  drawer  had  escaped  inspection,  not  a  paper  had  re- 
mained intact.  The  explanation  of  this  conduct  was  given  to  me 
later  on.  The  General  asked  me  the  name  of  the  Belgian  colonel 
that  I  had  received  the  evening  before,  insisted  on  learning  to  which 
branch  of  the  service  he  belonged,  etc.  I  replied:  *I  don't  know 
his  name  any  more  than  I  do  yours ;  I  don't  know  whence  he  came 
or  where  he  was  going,  any  more  than  I  know  your  destination.' 

"The  German  army  continued  to  pass  by.  They  were  arresting 
all  men.  About  four  o'clock  my  husband  came  in.  'So  far,  so 
good,  but  I  am  uneasy,'  he  said  to  me.  He  took  some  cigars  to 
give  to  the  sentinels  guarding  the  house.     The  position  of  the  door- 

180 


SOME  GERMAN  TESTIMONY 

for  destroying  Louvain;  the  alleged  cause  took  on 
larger  proportions  as  the  effects  grew.     The  Germans 

way  to  the  street  through  the  garden  enabled  us  to  catch  sight  of 
the  general  on  the  balcony.  I  remarked  to  my  husband  that  what 
he  was  doing  might  displease  the  authorities.  As  I  re-entered  the 
house,  I  glanced  into  the  Grand'  Place  and  I  saw  distinctly  two 
columns  of  smoke  followed  by  a  number  of  rifle  shots.  My  court- 
yard was  immediately  invaded  by  horses  and  soldiers,  who  were  fir- 
ing in  the  air  like  lunatics.  My  husband,  my  children,  the  servants 
and  myself,  had  only  time  to  rush  into  a  cellar,  hustled  by  soldiers 
who  took  refuge  in  our  house,  firing  the  while.  After  a  few  moments 
of  indescribable  anguish,  one  of  the  aides-de-camp  came  downstairs 
shouting:  'The  general  is  dead,  I  want  the  mayor.'  The  gen- 
eral had  been  struck  by  a  German  bullet  as  he  stood  on  the  bal- 
cony. My  husband  said  to  me:  'This  will  be  serious  for  me,' 
I  grasped  his  hand,  and  said :  'Courage !'  The  captain  turned 
my  husband  over  to  the  soldiers,  who  shoved  him  about  and  dragged 
him  away.     I  threw  myself  before  the  captain,  saying: 

"  'Sir,  you  can  see  that  neither  my  husband  nor  my  son  has 
fired,  since  they  are  here  unarmed.' 

"  'That  makes  no  difference,  Madame;  he  is  responsible.' 

"My  son  induced  us  to  move  to  another  cellar;  a  half-hour  later 
he  said  to  me:  'Mother,  I  hear  them  looking  for  us.'  'Well,  then, 
let  us  go  up;  let  us  bravely  meet  our  fate.' 

"The  same  captain  was  there.  .  .  .  'Madame,  I  must  take  your 
son.'  He  took  my  son,  fifteen  years  old !  And  as  my  son  walked 
with  difficulty  owing  to  his  wound,  he  kicked  him  along;  I  closed 
my  eyes  in  order  not  to  see,  I  felt  myself  dying  from  pain.  .  .  . 
It  was  atrocious.  ...  I  believe  he  has  had  my  son  taken  to  his 
father  in  the  City  Hall. 

"The  captain's  rage  was  not  yet  appeased;  he  returned  for  me 
and  forced  me  to  accompany  him  from  the  cellars  to  the  attics, 
claiming  that  the  soldiers  had  been  fired  on.  He  was  able  to  see 
that  the  rooms  were  empty  and  the  windows  shut.  During  this 
inspection  he  continued  to  threaten  me  with  his  Browning.  My 
daughter  placed  herself  between  us.  But  this  was  not  sufficient 
to  make  him  realise  his  cowardice.     When  we  reached  the  vesti- 

181 


BELGIUM 

claimed  that  the  civilians  of  Louvain  fired  on  the  sol- 
diers from  windows  along  the  Rue  de  la  Station,  the 

bule  I  said  to  him:  'What  is  to  become  of  us?'  He  answered 
coldly:  'You  will  be  shot  together  with  your  daughter  and  your 
servants.'  Meanwhile  the  soldiers  were  bending  their  bayonets 
and  showing  the  frightened  servants  how  well  they  could  prick 
one.  As  the  captain  was  leaving  us,  a  soldier  approached  me,  and 
said:  'Go  into  the  Grand'  Place,  no  harm  will  befall  the  women.' 
I  went  back  to  get  a  coat,  a  hat;  everything  had  already  been 
stolen.  We  left  our  home  without  anything.  On  reaching  the 
Square,  we  found  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  neighbourhood;  they 
were  all  weeping.  Beside  me,  a  young  girl  was  on  the  verge  of 
collapse  from  suffering:  her  father  and  her  two  brothers  had  been 
shot,  and  she  had  been  torn  from  the  bedside  of  her  dying  mother; 
nine  hours  later,  she  found  her  mother  dead. 

"We  had  been  in  the  square  for  an  hour,  surrounded  by  soldiers. 
All  the  houses  on  the  right  side  of  the  square  were  in  flames.  What 
one  could  observe  was  the  perfect  order  and  method  with  which 
those  bandits  worked;  there  was  an  absence  of  that  savagery  in 
pillaging  of  men  left  to  themselves.  I  can  declare  that  they  acted 
by  and  with  order.  While  the  houses  were  burning,  one  could 
see  soldiers  enter  the  houses;  carrying  electric  pocket  lamps,  they 
searched  the  buildings,  opening  windows  and  throwing  down  mat- 
tresses and  blankets,  which  were  given  to  the  poor.  From  time  to 
time  the  soldiers  shouted  to  us:  'You're  going  to  be  shot,  you're 
going  to  be  shot.'  Meanwhile,  soldiers  were  coming  out  of  our 
house,  their  arms  laden  with  bottles  of  wine;  they  were  opening 
the  windows  of  our  rooms  and  taking  everything  they  could  find 
there.  I  turned  away  from  this  scene  of  pillage.  By  the  light  of 
the  fires,  my  eyes  encountered  my  husband,  my  son,  and  my  brother- 
in-law,  accompanied  by  other  gentlemen,  who  were  being  led  to 
execution.  I  shall  never  forget  that  scene,  nor  the  gaze  of  my 
husband  looking  for  a  last  time  at  his  house,  and  asking  himself 
where  were  his  wife  and  daughter;  and  I,  so  that  he  should  not 
lose  courage,  could  not  call  to  him :     'Here  I  am !' 

"About  2  P.  M.  they  said  to  us.  'The  women  can  go  home.'  As 
my  house  was  still  filled  with  soldiers,  I  accepted  a  neighbour's  hospi- 

182 


SOME  GERMAN  TESTIMONY 

most  consequential  street  of  the  old  university  city, 
a  long  quiet  avenue  lined   with   the  handsome  resi- 

tality.  We  had  barely  reached  her  home  when  Germans  came  to 
inform  us  that  we  must  leave  the  city  immediately;  it  was  about  to 
be  bombarded.  We  were  forced  to  flee  in  the  direction  of  Rillaer. 
With  some  fifty  women  and  children,  we  were  obliged  to  walk  along 
a  road  strewn  with  the  bodies  of  poor  Belgian  soldiers,  civilians, 
horses,  in  the  midst  of  burned  houses;  on  the  way,  we  passed  hun- 
dreds of  automobiles  filled  with  German  officers  whose  bravery  con- 
sisted in  leveling  their  revolvers  at  women  who  lacked  even  enough 
money  to  buy  a  loaf  of  bread.  Finally,  after  an  hour's  walk,  we 
were  able  to  find  a  farmhouse  still  standing.  We  had  scarcely 
reached  it,  when  we  were  forbidden  to  enter  by  a  German  patrol  that 
forced  us  to  remain  huddled  together  in  a  nearby  field.  It  was  not 
until  late  at  night  that  we  were  allowed  to  enter  the  house,  but  only 
to  be  unable  to  leave  it.  We  were  obliged  to  stay  there  until  eight 
o'clock.  During  this  time  the  Germans  were  rounding  up  the  men, 
witnessing  farewells  between  husbands  and  wives,  then  forcing  their 
victims  to  advance;  300  meters  further  on  they  were  all  released. 
Before  leaving  us,  the  soldiers  inquired  whether  the  wife  of  the 
burgomaster  of  Aerschot  was  in  the  crowd.  They  were  told:  No, 
while  friends  destroyed  my  pass.  After  their  departure,  I  gained 
the  next  village,  where,  at  the  peril  of  their  lives,  friends  hid  me 
and  later  were  able  to  help  me  into  Holland. 

"I  learned  that  the  Germans  had  been  searching  for  me  for  weeks, 
and  that  they  even  off"ered  a  reward  of  10,000  francs  to  the  person 
who  would  disclose  my  whereabouts.  I  never  knew  why  the  Ger- 
mans wished  to  capture  me. 

"When  my  husband  and  his  companions  left  the  City  Hall  it  was 
eleven  P.  M.  They  were  taken  outside  the  city.  A  political  adver- 
sary of  my  husband,  Mr.  Claes  Van  Nuff'el,  spoke  up  and  begged 
the  officer  in  command  of  the  firing  squad  to  spare  the  life  of  the 
burgomaster,  saying  that  he  did  not  belong  to  the  same  poli1?ical 
party  as  my  husband,  but  that  Aerschot  needed  him  and  that  he  of- 
fered his  life  in  exchange  for  my  husband's.  The  German  officer 
was  immovable.  My  husband  thanked  Mr.  Claes,  saying  that  he 
would  die  in  peace,  that  his  life  had  been  spent  in  trying  to  accom- 

183 


BELGIUM 

dences  of  the  local  quality — university  professors,  law- 
yers, doctors,  and  the  haute  bourgeoisie.  But  even  this 
was  not  enough;  it  was  not  sufficiently  kolossal:  the 
thing  must  be  deeper,  more  profound,  more  in  accord 
with  the  current  legend  of  the  francs-tireurs — and  so  it 
grew  and  expanded  until  in  the  final  and  official  ver- 
sion it  blossomed  forth  as  a  Volkskrieg.  In  the  very 
houses  where  German  soldiers  were  quartered,  so  it 
was  asserted  by  Germans,  Belgian  soldiers,  who  had 
changed  their  uniforms  for  civilian  attire,  had  been  con- 
cealed armed  to  the  teeth,  provided  even  with  mitrail- 
leuses, and,  in  secret  communication  with  the  Belgian 
Government  at  Antwerp,  at  the  moment  when  Belgian 
troops  were  making  a  sortie  from  the  Antwerp  forts, 
suddenly,  at  a  preconcerted  signal,  had  sprung  forth, 
firing  from  windows  and  even  from  loop-holes  in  the 
houses, — placed  there,  it  is  intimated,  with  a  view  to  this 
very  exigency  when  the  houses  were  built,  and  had 
treacherously  fired  on  innocent  German  soldiers  who 
were  going  to  the  support  of  their  sorely  tried  com- 
rades at  the  front.  Such  is  the  German  version,  given 
in  the  White  Book  of  May  tenth,  1915. 

The  signal  for  this  uprising  is  said  to  have  been  sky- 
rockets falling  like  stars  in  the  evening  sky.  It  is  not 
at  all  unlikely  that  Germans  did  see  stars  that  evening. 
Never  in  history  were  soldiers  more  badly  frightened 

plish  as  much  good  as  possible,  that  he  did  not  ask  for  his  own  life, 
but  for  that  of  his  son,  a  child  of  fifteen,  who  would  console  his 
mother.  They  did  not  answer  him.  My  brother-in-law  besought 
them  to  spare  the  lives  of  his  brother  and  nephew.  They  would  not 
listen  to  him.  Toward  five  o'clock  on  the  20th  of  August  they  forced 
the  victims  to  kneel  and  an  instant  later  the  best  that  life  held  for 
me  had  ceased  to  exist." 

184 


SOME  GERMAN  TESTIMONY 

than  they  were  when  those  riderless  horses  came  gal- 
loping into  town  through  the  Porte  de  Malines,  and 
disturbed  the  officers  at  their  food  and  wine.  For  forty 
years  they  had  been  reading  about  those  French  francs- 
tireurs  with  the  ferocious  names,  those  dark  villains  that 
had  skulked  through  German  popular  fiction  for  two- 
score  years. 

There  are  many  accounts  of  it,  but  the  account  that 
I  like  best  is  the  one  written  by  Carl  Moenckeberg  and 
published  in  the  Diisseldorfer  General  Anzeiger  for 
the  tenth  of  September,  1914,  under  the  title  "Our 
Baptism  of  Fire  at  Louvain."  I  like  this  account  be- 
cause it  falls  in  with  my  notion  of  the  essential  roman- 
ticism of  German  fiction. 

"I  had  just  eaten  a  bit  at  the  Hotel  Metropole,'.' 
says  Moenckeberg.  "Numerous  detachments  of  infan- 
try that  did  not  belong  to  our  regiment  were  passing 
in  the  street.  It  was  said  that  they  were  going  to  sound 
the  alarm,  and  that  perhaps  at  night  we  would  have  to 
take  part  in  a  combat.  I  ran  as  far  as  the  Place.  There 
were  our  horses,  saddled,  that  had  just  come  from  the 
station,  and  there  was  installed  a  camp  of  our  field- 
wagons.  We'  mounted  and,  on  horseback,  rode  in  the 
streets  where  the  soldiers  were  swarming.  The  excite- 
ment was  great  and  swelled  even  more  as  darkness 
fell.  No  one  knew  what  was  going  on,  and  the  offi- 
cers were  forced  to  hold  back  their  men  by  crying  at 
the  top  of  their  voices  in  order  to  dominate  the  noise 
of  the  shuffling  of  the  soldiers  and  the  pawing  of  the 
horses.  After  a  certain  time  a  counter  order  arrived. 
We  returned  to  the  rear  and  again  occupied  the  Place, 
whose  space  was  filled  to  the  last  little  corner  with  the 
wagons  hitched  up.     Now  they  must  once  more  dis- 

185 


BELGIUM 

tribute  forage  in  order  that  before  night  men  and  horses 
may  take  their  quarters.  My  neighbour,  impatient,  was 
citing  to  me  the  following  phrase:  'The  soldier  passes 
the  greatest  part  of  his  life  in  waiting  in  vain.'  When 
the  last  word  was  hardly  out  of  his  mouth  a  formidable 
detonation  had  just  come  from  the  corner  of  the  Place. 
We  turned  about  with  the  rapidity  of  a  flash  of  light- 
ning. I  saw  at  the  height  of  a  man  a  brilliant  light. 
My  first  thought  was  that  the  Belgian  artillery  had  just 
arrived  and  was  shooting  at  the  troops  parked  in  the 
Place — at  the  same  moment  all  the  saddle  horses  rush 
to  the  side  opposite  from  that  whence  came  the  detona- 
tion, jostle  one  another,  and  enter  the  street  that  is  just 
in  front.  The  harnessed  horses  also,  seized  by  panic,  shy 
^d  drag  the  wagons  in  every  direction — ^many  break 
their  straps  and  start  to  gallop  across  all  that  crowd. 
Impossible  to  control  them.  The  panic  of  the  horses 
threatens  to  extend  itself  to  the  men.  No  one  knows 
what  is  going  on.  All,  without  understanding  any- 
thing, look  fixedly  in  the  direction  of  the  first  explo- 
sion awaiting  the  second.  Then  from  the  four  sides 
of  the  Place  a  rain  of  bullets,  coming  from  the  windows 
of  the  principal  houses,  falls  crackling  on.  us.  All  pre- 
caution is  useless.  From  whatever  side  one  turns  the 
bullets  whistle  and  crackle  at  our  ears  in  a  bewildering 
way.  Whoever  has  an  arm — and  every  one  has  either 
an  infantry  gun,  or  a  musket,  or  a  revolver — shoots  me- 
chanically toward  the  first  point  where  he  thinks  there 
is  an  enemy.  They  shoot  a  second  time,  then  a  third. 
They  shoot  without  ceasing,  and  every  one  finds  himself 
in  the  double  danger,  equally  great — either  to  be  brought 
down  by  the  Belgians  or  by  his  own  comrades.  My 
revolver  misses  fire;  the  ball  is  choked  in  the  barrel. 

186 


SOME  GERMAN  TESTIMONY 

I  throw  myself  down  on  my  stomach  under  a  tree,  at 
the  same  time  with  several  soldiers  who  were  shooting. 
I  realise  in  a  manner  very  clear,  but  also  very  hopeless, 
that  only  a  highly  impossible  miracle  can  save  me, 
for  this  infernal  chaos  must  endure  for  some  minutes 
yet.  I  ask  only  to  be  struck  by  a  blow  that  will  finish 
me  and  not  leave  me  half  dead  in  the  hands  of  these 
aggressors.  There!  Listen  I  What  signify  these  ap- 
peals or  orders  shouted  with  insistence?  First  we  un- 
derstand nothing  because  explosion  follows  explosion. 
'The  English  come!'  says  a  neighbour  in  my  ear.  'The 
German  troops  come  to  our  aid!'  cries  another.  At 
last  the  shots  became  rarer,  the  voices  more  distinct. 
We  hear,  'Don't  shoot  any  more,  thunder  and  lightning, 
keep  still!'  And  indeed  the  storm  quiets  down  a  little. 
German  discipline  triumphs,  the  enemy  is  van- 
quished !" 

Could  any  psychologist  give  a  better  description  of 
the  state  of  mind  of  those  soldiers  ?  One  almost  has  sym- 
pathy for  poor  Moenckeberg ;  not  bad  as  to  heart  at  all, 
but  young,  sentimental,  imaginative,  far  from  home — 
and  writing  for  the  papers. 

One  is  not  quite  sure  whether  it  is  the  Place  de  la 
Station  or  the  Place  du  Peuple  that  Moenckeberg  is 
writing  about;  perhaps  he  is  not  quite  sure  himself. 
But  one  concludes  that  it  must  have  been  the  Place  de  la 
Station. 

Oberleutnant  Telemann,  in  his  deposition,  is  more 
matter-of-fact,  less  literary:  "Out  in  the  Place,  mean- 
while," he  says,  "there  was  a  terrible  excitement — (ein 
tolles  Durcheinander) ;  the  horses  were  frightened  and 
ran  away  in  all  directions,  and  the  soldiers  were  cry- 
ing, 'Die  Franzosen  sind  da!  Die  Englaender  sind  da!' " 

187 


BELGIUM 

At  any  rate,  Moenckeberg's  story  is  now  a  classic, 
since  it  has  received  official  recognition  and  is  pub- 
lished by  the  Government  as  evidence  of  what  occurred 
at  Louvain,  and  of  why  the  army  had  to  do  what  it  did 
there.  For  the  Germans  had  an  investigation — a  com- 
mission was  appointed  to  examine  into  the  matter,  to 
take  evidence ;  and  this  commission  reported  that  it  was 
all  the  fault  of  Belgian  francs-tireurs.  The  witnesses 
were  all  German  soldiers,  and  a  few  officers.  No  Bel- 
gians and  no  neutrals  were  allowed  to  follow  the  prog- 
ress of  the  hearing.  Certain  Belgians,  among  the  nota- 
bles of  the  city  of  Louvain,  volunteered  to  appear  and 
testify,  but  their  testimony  was  for  the  most  part  re- 
fused, and  that  which  was  given  does  not  appear  in 
the  German  White  Book,  which  is  the  official  document 
on  the  subject.  The  inquiry  was  conducted,  or  in  part 
conducted,  by  a  German  Feldkriegsgerichtsrat,  Dr. 
Ivers.  He  seems  to  have  been  a  kind  of  judge-advo- 
cate. His  conclusions,  of  course,  were  that  the  Germans 
were  in  no  wise  to  blame  for  what  occurred  at  Louvain 
and  that  they  were  wholly  justified  in  doing  what 
they  did. 

The  Germans  had  been  eager  to  have  Gibson,  BuUe, 
Poussette  and  Blount  testify  to  the  effect  that  while 
at  Louvain  they  had  seen  Belgian  civilians  shooting 
from  the  windows.  I  would  not  consent  to  Gibson's 
testifying  unless  the  American  Government  desired 
it,  and  the  American  Government  did  not  desire  it. 
Thereupon  Poussette  and  Bulle  declined  to  testify. 
Their  testimony  in  any  event,  according  to  our  rules  of 
evidence,  could  have  established  no  other  fact  than  that 
three  days  after  the  tragedy  began  there  was  still  shoot- 
ing in  the  streets  at  Louvain.     They  had  no  means  of 

188 


SOME  GERMAN  TESTIMONY 

knowing  who  it  was  that  was  firing,  and  even  if  civilians 
had  fired  it  would  not  be  surprising.  That  which  had 
been  going  on  for  three  days  was  enough  to  make  any 
civilian  fire,  if  he  had  anything  to  fire  with,  and  his 
firing  three  days  after  the  horror  had  begun  could  not 
throw  the  least  light  on  the  question  of  initial  responsi- 
bility. Indeed,  for  all  that  the  secretaries  knew  the 
Belgian  theory  that  German  soldiers  had  been  placed 
in  empty  houses  to  shoot  from  upper  windows  in  order 
to  impress  the  representatives  of  neutral  powers  with 
the  viciousness  of  the  Belgians,  was  just  as  valid  as  the 
German  claim. 

One  morning,  during  the  progress  of  the  hearing,  a 
German  officer  appeared  at  the  Legation.  He  was 
large,  portly,  dressed  in  the  grey-green  uniform,  wore 
a  heavy  sword  and  thick  professorial  spectacles.  Un- 
der his  arm  he  bore  an  enormous  portfolio  that  might 
have  contained,  could  he  have  found  it,  enough  evi- 
dence to  convict  seven  million  Belgians.  He  entered, 
clicked  his  heels,  placed  his  hand  at  his  helmet,  bowed 
stiffly,  and  without  more  ado  seated  himself  at  my 
desk,  opened  his  portfolio,  spread  it  out  before  him, 
and,  in  short,  told  us  to  begin  testifying.  I  looked  at 
the  man  in  amazement.  I  do  not  know  just  what  con- 
fused notions  of  his  power  and  authority  were  ebullient 
in  his  skull.  But  I  finally  convinced  him  that  he  was 
labouring  under  some  misapprehension;  and  ultimately 
he  went  away,  pausing  only  for  a  rather  petulant  salute. 
I  do  not  know  whether  this  man  was  Dr.  Ivers  or  not. 
It  would  be  too  bold  a  confession  of  the  weakness  of 
my  own  character  to  say  that  I  wish  it  were  so,  for 
reading  the  other  day  of  Dr.  Ivers,  this  man's  physiog- 
nomy came  to  my  mind — the  thick  neck,  the  heavy  jowls, 

189 


BELGIUM 

the  upstanding  stiff,  cropped  hair,  the  myopic  specta- 
cles, and  the  manner.  I  know  that  the  ad  hominem 
argument  is  a  fallacy,  and  a  repugnant  weapon  besides, 
but  it  is  not  wholly  uninteresting  in  this  connection  to 
note  that  Feldkriegsgerichtsrat  Ivers  has  since  been 
tried  and  convicted  before  the  Criminal  Courts  of  Ber- 
lin on  a  charge  of  having  used  his  legal  functions  for 
the  purpose  of  extorting  money  from  the  mother  of  a 
man  then  serving  in  the  army,  whose  wife  was  suing 
him  for  a  divorce,  that  for  this  he  has  been  sent  to 
prison,  and  that  in  sentencing  him  the  judge  who  pre- 
sided at  the  trial  said  that  from  the  evidence  it  had  been 
shown  that  the  accused  Ivers  was  without  moral  sense 
or  judgment. 

The  investigation,  however,  seems  not  to  have  been  a 
hearing  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word.  The 
Feldkriegsgerichtsrat  evidently  had  a  rogatory  commis- 
sion, for  he  went  about  from  one  place  to  another,  much 
as  he  came  into  the  Legation  that  morning,  holding  court 
wherever  he  found  a  witness  whose  testimony  was  de- 
sired. There  was  no  cross-examination.  The  deposi- 
tions were  taken  in  many  different  places;  I  am  not 
quite  sure  that  they  were  sworn  to — not  that  it  makes 
any  difference,  for  I  could  never  quite  see  myself  why 
so  much  to-do  was  made  about  oaths,  since  a  man  who 
would  lie  would  probably  be  willing  to  swear  to  it.  But 
the  depositions  were  made,  many  of  them,  weeks  and 
even  months  afterwards,  and  it  is  a  curious  coincidence  * 
that  they  were  devised  so  as  to  refute  in  advance  the 
points  that  were  afterwards  raised. 

The  echauffouree  in  the  Place  de  la  Station  was  the 
most  intense.  Pay-officer  Rudolph  testified  that  from 
the  night  of  the  twenty-fourth  to  the  twenty-fifth  all  of 

190 


SOME  GERMAN  TESTIMONY 

the  chambers  were  still  held  by  German  officers.  He  tried 
to  get  a  room  at  the  Hotel  Marie-Therese,  but  it  was 
full.  On  the  evening  of  the  twenty-fifth  the  cafes  were 
closed  at  eight  o'clock,  in  accordance  with  the  order  of 
the  Kommandantur ,  and  no  .civilian  was  allowed  in  the 
street.  The  Place  de  la  Station  was  at  the  moment  filled 
with  wagons  and  with  soldiers.  A  few  moments  after 
eight  o'clock  a  whistle  blew  somewhere,  and  immediately 
the  soldiers  in  the  Place  began  shooting  in  all  directions. 
The  occupants  of  the  houses,  naturally  frightened,  took 
refuge  in  the  rear  rooms  and  in  the  cellars.  The  offi- 
cers and  soldiers  themselves,  stricken  with  panic,  joined 
the  people  in  the  cellars.  Every  one  in  Louvain  knows 
and  smiles  grimly  about  it  except  when  they  speak  of 
those  Germans  who  had  the  very  persons  with  whom 
they  had  taken  refuge  dragged  out  afterwards  and 
shot. 

One  other  deposition  is  of  interest,  that  of  Ober- 
leutnant  von  Sandt,  the  comrade  of  Berghausen,  a  cap- 
tain of  the  Neuss  Landsturm.  Von  Sandt's  company 
was  at  the  railway-station  early  in  the  evening  when 
the  shooting  began. 

"In  about  an  hour,"  he  says,  "an  adjutant  came  who 
cried  my  name,  von  Sandt.  He  told  me  that  he  was 
the  adjutant  of  Excellency  von  Boehn,  and  he  put  the 
following  question  to  me:  'Can  you  affirm  on  oath  that 
Belgians  shot  at  your  company  from  the  houses  situated 
in  front  and  at  the  side?'  I  replied:  'Yes,  I  can  swear 
it.*  Thereupon  the  adjutant  conducted  me  to  Excel- 
lency von  Boehn,  who  was  nearby.  His  Excellency  de- 
sired an  exact  report ;  I  gave  it  to  him  exactly  as  I  have 
made  it  here  before  the  member  of  the  Council  of  War, 
Dr.  Ivers.    When  I  had  finished  my  report  His  Excel- 

191 


BELGIUM 

lency  said  to  me:  *Can  you  affirm,  on  oath,  that  which 
you  have  just  told  me,  in  particular  that  it  was  the 
inhabitants  who  began  to  shoot  from  the  houses?'  I 
replied  to  him:  'Certainly,  I  can.'  " 

All  through  von  Sandt's  deposition  are  such  phrases 
as  "I  was  told  so"  and  "Soldiers  told  me  that,"  and 
all  of  the  soldiers'  depositions  are  full  of  hearsay  and 
of  conclusions — which  must  be  believed  in  Germany 
because  they  are  made  by  German  soldiers. 

But  the  account  would  not  be  complete — no  history 
of  those  times,  by  whomever  written,  would  be  complete 
— without  a  word  or  two  concerning  Dr.  Georg  Berg- 
hausen. 

Dr.  Georg  Berghausen,  surgeon-in-chief  of  the  sec- 
ond battalion  of  the  Landsturm  of  Neuss,  is  a  young 
man  who  appears  at  several  points  in  this  narrative, 
and  in  his  own  deposition,  almost  in  the  first  line,  he 
gives  us  an  accurate  description  of  himself;  for  there 
is  this  terrible  and  fatal  quality  in  all  writing,  which 
should  no  doubt  adjure  us  all  to  silence — namely,  that, 
no  matter  how  imperfect  a  picture  the  writer  gives  of 
everything  else,  he  always  draws  a  perfect  portrait  of 
himself. 

"I  arrived  at  Louvain,"  says  our  doctor,  "the  twen- 
ty-fourth of  August,  in  the  afternoon,  and  went  to  the 
hotel.  In  order  favourably  to  impress  the  landlord  and 
his  waiters  I  turned  out  of  my  pocket  the  sum  of  fifty 
francs,  destined  to  the  purchase  of  food." 

There  you  have  him,  at  his  entrance  on  the  stage. 
Arriving  at  the  hotel  with  a  flourish,  striking  an  attitude, 
twirling  his  moustache,  impressing  the  natives. 

No  sooner  arrived  in  Louvain  than  he  goes  to  the 
penitentiary  in  order  to  set  at  liberty  all  prisoners  of 

192 


SOME  GERMAN  TESTIMONY 

German  nationality — not  prisoners  of  war,  but  Germans 
condemned  long  before  the  war  for  felonies. 

Again,  on  the  twenty-first  of  September,  we  find  him 
in  the  heat  of  the  fray.  He  went  out  to  battle,  and  at 
the  head  of  several  Hussars  captures  a  mitrailleuse  from 
the  Belgians,  and  was  given  the  Iron  Cross — of  the 
second  class. 

Next  we  see  him  bending  to  kiss  the  hands  of  Bel- 
gian nurses  at  the  hospital,  expatiating  to  them  on  the 
solidarity  that  binds  all  workers  of  the  Red  Cross  to- 
gether. Later  on  in  September,  according  to  a  news- 
paper of  Cologne,  he  is  at  a  religious  ceremony  in 
Louvain,  mounting  to  the  pulpit  beside  the  Dominican 
father  and  translating  into  German,  for  the  benefit  of 
German  soldiers  present,  the  sermon  which  the  monk 
had  just  delivered  in  French  to  his  own  people.  Thus  it 
is  not  surprising  to  find  him  in  the  midst  of  the  affray 
there  in  the  Place  de  la  Station  that  night.  He  had  gone 
on  foot,  he  says,  to  the  Place  de  la  Station,  and  on  the 
way  Belgians  had  fired  at  him  from  upper  windows  ten 
or  twelve  times.  However,  he  was  not  touched  by  the 
shots  of  the  francs-tireurs,  and  he  arrived  at  the  Statue 
Juste-Lipse.  He  arrived  tardily  on  the  scene — it  was 
then  half -past  ten  o'clock — and  he  saw  the  body  of  a 
German  soldier  lying  in  the  street,  and,  as  he  says  in  his 
deposition,  asking  some  German  soldiers  nearby  who 
it  was  that  killed  the  man,  "they  pointed  to  the  house 
of  David  Fishback." 

But  it  is  better  that  he  tell  it  himself. 

"I  myself  broke  in  the  door,  with  the  aid  of  my 
orderly,  and  I  found  the  occupant  of  the  house,  Mr. 
David  Fishback,  the  elder.  I  asked  him  the  reason  for 
the  murder  of  the  soldier,  because,  I  said  to  him,  his 

193 


BELGIUM 

comrades  had  told  me  *it  was  from  the  windows  of  your 
house  that  the  shot  was  fired  which  brought  down  the 
soldier  extended  there  on  the  square.'  The  old  man 
assured  me  that  he  knew  nothing  of  it.  Upon  this  his 
son,  the  young  Fishback,  came  downstairs  from  the 
first  story,  and  the  old  servant  came  out  of  the  porter's 
lodge.  I  led  outside  at  once  the  father,  the  son,  and  the 
servant.  At  this  moment  a  panic  took  place  in  the 
street  because  from  several  houses  situated  a  little 
farther  on,  on  the  same  side,  they  were  firing  in  a  ter- 
rible fashion  on  the  soldiers  who  were  near  the  statue 
and  on  me.  In  the  darkness  I  lost  sight  of  the  father 
Fishback,  the  son,  and  the  servant." 

Again  Berghausen  is  almost  miraculously  spared,  and 
goes  down  the  street,  encountering  von  Manteuffel,  "ac- 
companied by  the  President  of  the  Croix  Rouge,  the 
Dominican  friar  and  the  old  Cure,"  as  he  refers  to  Mon- 
seigneur  Coenraets.  "We  four,  or  rather  we  five" — 
Berghausen  is  always  meticulous  in  minute  details — "we 
all  saw  the  dead  soldier."  Berghausen's  star  had  been 
constant,  for,  like  all  the  other  soldiers  on  whom,  as  he 
says,  they  were  shooting  in  such  terrible  fashion  from 
the  windows,  once  more  he  passed  through  the  fire  un- 
scathed. "We  all  saw  the  dead  soldier  and  a  few  steps 
further  on  Mr.  David  Fishback,  the  elder,  dead  also. 
He  was  stretched  before  the  statue.  I  suppose  that  the 
comrades  of  the  soldier,  having  seen  that  it  was  indeed 
from  the  house  of  Fishback  that  the  shot  was  fired  that 
killed  him,  had  immediately  inflicted  punishment  on 
the  possessor  of  the  house." 

Nothing  here  from  Berghausen  of  his  own  responsi- 
bility as  an  officer.  He  had  dragged  an  old  gentleman 
from  his  own  house,  after  breaking  in  his  door,  and 

194 


SOME  GERMAN  TESTIMONY 

had  turned  him  over  to  the  wrath  of  frenzied  soldiers, 
and  then  lost  sight  of  him  in  the  darkness.  And  he 
supposes  that  they  had  killed  him  because  he  was  the 
possessor  of  the  house  from  which  shots  had  been  fired ! 

Later  on  in  his  deposition  there  is  this  statement: 
"I  can  declare  in  the  most  formal  manner  that  the 
officers  and  the  soldiers  who  were  following  the  Rue  de 
la  Station,  at  the  moment  when  I  was  going  to  the 
station,  did  not  shoot.  From  which  it  is  established 
that" — Berghausen  never  leaves  any  doubt  in  his  evi- 
dence, but  himself  always  draws  the  desired  conclusions 
for  one — "from  which  it  is  established,"  he  says,  "that 
on  the  night  of  the  twenty-fifth  and  twenty-sixth  of 
August,  some  time  between  ten  and  eleven  o'clock,  the 
inhabitants  of  the  Rue  de  la  Station,  without  the  Ger- 
man soldiers  having  furnished  them  any  pretext,  shot 
from  their  windows  on  officers  and  men,  and,  in  particu- 
lar, when  we  were  passing  before  the  house  No.  120  Rue 
de  la  Station  they  were  aiming  from  the  windows  of  the 
second  story  of  that  house,  as  I  saw  myself  the  murder- 
ous fire  on  officers  and  soldiers.  That  all  or  at  least  that 
some  of  us  were  not  killed  I  can  explain  only  by  the  fact 
that  the  officers  and  soldiers  were  on  the  sidewalk  on  the 
side  of  the  street  from  which  they  were  shooting,  and 
that,  besides,  profound  darkness  was  reigning. 

"In  my  deposition,  which  I  am  ready  to  confirm  by 
oath,  made  in  all  conscience,  it  is  established  in  a  man- 
ner absolutely  undeniable  that  on  the  night  from  the 
twenty-fifth  to  the  twenty-sixth  of  August,  as  well  as 
on  the  afternoon  of  the  twenty-sixth  of  August,  inhabi- 
tants of  Louvain  shot  on  numerous  occasions  on  the  Ger- 
man soldiers,  and  this  without  any  pretext,  without  a 

195 


BELGIUM 

shot  having  been  first  fired  on  them  by  an  officer  or 
soldier." 

Such  is  his  deposition,  as  it  appears  in  the  German 
White  Book,  and  such  is  Berghausen,  and  such  was 
all  of  the  published  evidence  in  the  hearing,  such  is  all 
the  evidence  in  the  White  Book;  and  these  are  the  star 
witnesses.  Their  evidence  has  satisfied  the  German 
conscience,  though  indeed  that  was  satisfied  already. 
Did  not  ninety-three  German  professors — scientists 
whose  conclusions  are  said  to  be  based  only  on  proved 
facts — even  long  before  the  White  Book  appeared,  sol- 
emnly declare  that  Louvain  had  been  justly  punished? 


XXX 

DINANT 

LouvAiN  will  remain,  perhaps,  the  classic  instance  of 
Schrecklichkeit;  it  resumes  and  sums  up  m  the  general 
mind  the  sinister  history  of  those  terrible  times.  But 
it  was  not  the  worst;  Vise  was  worse,  and  so  was  Dinant, 
and  so  was  Aerschot;  and  worst  of  all,  perhaps,  was 
Tamines.  Vise  was  the  first — it  was  near  there  that  on 
the  second  of  August  the  Germans,  wilfully  violating 
their  treaty,  invaded  the  little  land  they  had  sworn  to 
protect.  Going  from  St.  Remy  along  the  Road  of  the 
Three  Chimneys,  the  route  the  Germans  took  from 
Aachen  to  Vise,  one  comes  to  a  turn  in  the  highway 
where  in  place  of  the  fine  old  sixteenth  century  house 
belonging  to  the  de  Borchgrave  family,  there  stands  now 
only  a  mass  of  blackened  walls.  And  there,  along  the 
Meuse,  below  one  lies  a  silent  city,  its  empty  chambers 
open  to  the  sky ;  it  might  be  Pompeii.  Those  ruins  might 
have  lain  there  for  centuries.  There  is  not  a  living  thing 
there.  The  devastation,  the  destruction  are  absolute, 
the  silence  complete ;  it  is  the  very  abomination  of  deso- 
lation— a  mass  of  brick  and  stone  and  charred  beams, 
crumbling  white  fa9ades,  whose  windows,  their  case- 
ments blackened  by  fire,  stare  like  the  hollow  sockets 
of  skulls.  Of  the  four  thousand  inhabitants  not  one 
is  there,  not  a  house  is  standing,  not  a  roof  remains.  The 
taverns,  where  the  people  used  to  go  in  joyous  bands 
to  eat  of  the  famous  roast  goose,  are  heaps  of  cinders; 
the  very  trees  in  their  gardens,  under  whose  boughs 

•    197 


BELGIUM 

the  youth  of  Leige  used  to  dance  the  cramignon,  have 
been  burned.  The  scaling  walls  of  the  church  tremble 
in  the  wind,  the  roof  has  fallen  in ;  the  towers  with  their 
bells,  the  organs,  the  statues,  have  tumbled  into  bits. 
The  work  that  would  have  required  ages  was  accom- 
plished by  German  organization  in  a  night. 

And  my  lawyer  friend  who  was  born  there,  when  he 
saw  it  from  the  turn  in  the  Road  of  the  Three  Chimneys 
and  looked  on  the  ruins  lying  before  him  along  the  high- 
way to  the  Meuse,  said: 

"Since  there  is  nothing  left  with  which  to  begin  life 
anew,  let  the  city  be  preserved  as  it  is — a  holy  necropolis 
and  a  shrine;  a  monument  to  the  implacable  ferocity  of 
German  'kultur.'  " 

The  German  troops  entered  St.  Remy-sous-Argen- 
teau  on  the  fourth  of  August  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing ;  they  came  in  an  endless  stream,  that  rolled  on  like  a 
tide  to  the  Meuse.  Those  first  comers  did  no  harm 
to  the  civilians;  it  was  not  until  they  had  been  checked 
by  the  Belgian  army  that  the  civil  population  had  to 
suffer.  They  fell  back,  and  because  Vise  lay  on  the 
main  road  running  from  Germany  to  the  Meuse,  they 
put  it  to  fire  and  sword,  and  whole  families,  threatened 
with  shooting  if  they  should  leave  their  houses,  were 
burned  alive  in  their  homes — ^men,  women,  and  children. 

The  old  Cure  of  the  Parish  of  St.  Remy,  having 
buried  a  neighbouring  priest,  shot  because  the  Belgian 
Engineers  had  used  the  tower  of  his  church  for  observa- 
tions, remarked  to  a  German  officer  that  it  was  unjust; 
that  it  was  the  military,  and  not  the  priest,  that  had 
set  up  the  observation-post,  and  that  the  priest  had  no 
means  of  preventing  them  from  doing  so.  And  the 
officer  replied: 

198     t 


DIN ANT 

"Yes,  all  that  is  true;  but  war  isf  war,  and  they  did 
right  to  shoot  the  priest." 

All  the  old  Cure  could  do  was  to  go  out  of  his  par- 
sonage and  over  the  fields  alone  in  the  dark  night;  he 
could  not  see  two  paces  ahead  of  him,  but  to  right  and 
left  he  heard  cries  of  pain  and  the  groans  of  dying 
men  and  there,  alone  on  that  field,  turning  about,  he 
made  the  sign  of  the  cross  many  times,  giving  a  gen- 
eral absolution  to  all  those  unknown  men  who  were  dy- 
ing there.   - 

We  had  just  begun  to  hear  of  the  horror  of  Dinant 
when  the  horror  of  Louvain  came  upon  us,  be- 
cause that  was  nearer,  more  immediate,  it  dulled  the  im- 
pression of  the  other  deed ;  we  could  not  realize  that  the 
charming  little  town,  set  like  a  jewel  on  the  Meuse, 
with  the  picturesque  rock  of  its  citadel  and  the  curiously 
Oriental  spire  of  the  old  church  of  Notre-Dame,  was 
no  more.  "Dinant  has  been  destroyed,"  said  some  one 
almost  casually;  it  was  but  one  more  detail  in  the  great 
cataclysm.  It  was  the  first  of  September,  when  we  were 
beginning  to  get  the  events  of  Louvain  in  order  in  our 
minds,  that  the  two  men  came  in  from  Dinant.  I  have 
since  read  the  story  many  times  and  in  many  reports, 
but  their  account  in  all  essentials  was  sufficient;  the 
others  could  but  piece  out  the  recital  with  shocking  de- 
tails until  a  long  while  afterwards  we  had  the  sinister 
necrology:  the  names  and  ages  of  the  606  victims  of 
the  massacre — old  men  of  seventy  and  eighty  and 
women  and  little  children  and  babies  in  their  mother's 
arms. 

The  Germans  had  entered  Dinant  on  the  sixth  of 
August.  The  town  folk  had  heard  of  the  destruction  of 
Vise,  but  they  did  not  believe  it.     There  were  skirmishes 

199 


BELGIUM 

in  the  country  round  between  Uhlans,  making  recon- 
noissances,  and  Belgian  and  French  troopers,  but  that 
was  all.  Then  on  the  fifteenth  the  Germans  tried  to 
force  their  way  across  the  Meuse,  but  they  were  re- 
pulsed, and  fell  back  in  retreat.  The  Dinantais  thought 
that  the  French  had  definitely  won  the  engagement  and 
that  they  were  among  friends,  but  just  at  nightfall  on 
the  twenty-first  a  band  of  German  soldiers,  about  150  in 
all,  dashed  down  the  road  from  Ciney  and  along  the  Rue 
St.-Jacques,  shouting  like  savages,  smashing  street 
lamps,  firing  into  windows,  throwing  incendiary  bombs 
into  houses,  terrorizing  the  population  of  the  quarter  of 
St.  Roch,  "shooting  up"  the  town,  as  they  used  to  say  in 
the  Far  West. 

Then  suddenly,  early  on  the  morning  of  the  twenty- 
third,  German  troops  began  pouring  into  the  town  from 
all  four  quarters ;  they  came  by  the  Lisogne  road,  by  the 
Ciney  road,  by  the  Froidevaux  road,  but  principally  by 
la  Montague  de  St.-Nicolas,  and  while  the  shells 
exchanged  by  the  German  artillery  on  the  citadel  with 
the  French  across  the  river  were  screaming  overhead, 
the  soldiers  turned  the  inhabitants  out  of  doors,  set  the 
dwellings  on  fire,  herded  the  people  in  a  mass  and 
marched  them,  their  hands  above  their  heads,  across 
the  city  to  the  Place  d'Armes.  The  men  were  sepa- 
rated from  the  women  and  children,  ranged  in  line,  and 
from  time  to  time  during  the  day  a  few  were  selected, 
led  out  and  shot.  In  the  Leffe  quarter  alone  the  Ger- 
mans shot  thus  140;  and  at  evening  they  shot  the  Ar- 
gentine Consul,  and  forty  workmen  in  a  factory.  The 
terror  lasted  all  that  day  and  night.  The  Germans 
locked  whole  crowds  of  the  people  in  barracks,  in  sta- 
bles, in  factories,  surrounded  them  by  soldiers  ready  to 

200 


DINANT 

fire  at  any  moment ;  and  in  the  St.  Roch  quarter  they  im- 
prisoned a  group  in  a  building,  placed  bundles  of  straw 
all  around  the  house  and  set  it  on  fire — but,  by  a  fortu- 
nate chance  the  Germans  overlooked  a  cellar  window, 
and  the  people  crawled  one  by  one  out  of  this  and 
escaped. 

Women  and  children  were  forced  to  stand  by  and  wit- 
ness the  murder  of  husbands  or  fathers;  one  woman, 
Madame  Alnin,  who  had  given  birth  to  a  child  three  days 
before,  was  borne  forth  on  a  mattress  by  German 
soldiers,  who  said  they  would  compel  her  to  look  on  while 
they  shot  her  husband,  but  her  cries  and  supplications 
finally  moved  the  soldiers  to  spare  the  husband's  life. 

The  soldiers  "stood  by  laughing"  while  the  execu- 
tions were  going  on.  During  all  that  night  of  the  twen- 
ty-third they  marched  about  the  city,  setting  fire  to  such 
buildings  as  had  escaped  shelling,  and  when  the  fires 
slackened  somewhat  they  systematically  pillaged  every- 
where— in  the  famous  wine-cellars,  of  course ;  in  banks, 
the  safes  of  which  they  blew  open;  and  in  jewelry  shops, 
whence  they  bore  off  silver  and  plate,  and  wherever 
there  was  property  to  be  taken  they  placed  guards  to 
protect  it  from  all  but  their  own  robbery ! 

And  when  their  rage  was  spent,  out  of  1,400  houses 
but  400  remained.  The  old  church  of  Notre-Dame,  that 
had  survived  the  wars  of  seven  hundred  years,  was  de- 
stroyed, the  picturesque  tower  no  longer  reared  itself 
under  the  rook  of  the  citadel ;  the  College  and  the  Hotel 
de  Ville — all  were  in  ruins. 

Four  hundred  and  sixteen  Dinantais,  arrested — ^no 
one  knew  why — on  the  night  of  the  twenty-third,  were 
taken,  to  the  plateau  of  Herbuchenne  on  the  heights 
overlooking  Dinant  where  they  were  camped  in  the  open 

201 


BELGIUM 

air  without  food  or  drink.  Some  of  the  soldiers  who 
guarded  them  told  them  that  they  would  be  shot  at  day- 
break; others  that  they  would  be  transferred  to  Coblentz. 

Their  escort  was  commanded  by  a  captain  of  the 
100th  Infantry,  who,  while  they  were  waiting,^  saw  a 
superb  stallion  in  a  field  and  wantonly  shot  it  dead.  A 
while  later  he  shot  a  mare  and  her  colt.  Finally  the 
prisoners  were  marched  toward  Ciney.  They  were  con- 
tinually threatened  with  death;  soldiers  spat  in  their 
faces,  threw  ordures  at  them,  and  officers  struck  them 
with  their  riding-crops.  From  time  to  time  the  captain 
in  command,  who  was  mounted,  would  turn  in  his  sad- 
dle to  shout  at  them,  "Vous  etes  des  hetesT  Thus  they 
were  taken  to  the  prison  camp  at  Cassel  in  Germany. 

One  scene  remains  to  be  described — a  scene  that  in  its 
unsurpassed  and  shameful  cruelty  has  no  counterpart, 
even  in  the  dark  annals  of  savage  tribes.  It  was  on  that 
Sunday  morning  of  the  twenty-third.  The  Germans  that 
swarmed  down  the  Freidrau  road  entered  the  quarter  of 
Penant,  arrested  the  inhabitants  and  took  them  to  the 
Rocher  Bayard,  the  famous  picturesque  rock  that,  split 
off  from  the  cliff  and  overlooking  the  lovely  ISIeuse,  is 
associated  in  romantic  legend  with  the  fils  Aymon  and 
their  famous  horse  Bayard.  The  people  were  held  there, 
evidently  as  a  screen,  while  the  Germans  began  to  con- 
struct a  temporary  bridge  over  the  river.  The  French 
were  on  the  other  side,  and  now  and  then  they  shot  at 
the  soldiers  working  there.  The  Germans,  annoyed 
by  the  spitting  irregular  fire,  sent  a  citizen  of  Dinant, 
one  of  the  prisoners,  in  a  boat  across  the  river  to  inform 
the  French  that  unless  they  ceased  firing  the  civilians 

^  Testimony  of  Mr.  TschofFer,  Procureur  du  Roi  de  Dinant 
(Crown  Prosecutor  for  Dinant.) 

202 


DINANT 

would  be  shot.  M.  Bourdon  made  his  dangerous  voy- 
age, accomphshed  his  mission,  and  returned  to  take  his 
place  among  his  fellows.  But  a  few  stray  bullets  still 
sped  across  the  river. 

Then  was  committed  the  atrocious  crime.  The 
prisoners  were  massed  together,  nearly  ninety  of  them — 
old  men  and  young,  women,  girls  and  boys,  little  chil- 
dren, and  babies  in  their  mothers'  arms.  A  platoon  was 
called  up,  the  colonel  in  command  gave  the  word  to  fire 
and  the  grey  soldiers  in  cold  blood  shot  down  those 
ninety  persons  as  they  stood  huddled  there  together. 
Among  them  were  twelve  children  under  the  age  of 
six  years,  six  of  whom  were  little  babies  whose  mothers, 
as  they  stood  up  to  face  their  pitiless  murderers,  held 
them  in  their  arms. 

The  six  babies  were : 

The  child  Flevet,  three  weeks  old; 
Maurice  Betemps,  eleven  months  old; 
Nelly  Poullet,  eleven  months  old; 
Gilda   Genen,  eighteen  months   old? 
Gilda  Marchot,  two  years  old; 
Clara  Struvay,  two  years  old. 

Evening  came.  The  grey  soldiers  were  fumbling  in 
the  mass  of  prostrate  bodies,  whose  contorted  limbs  were 
still  at  last,  fixed  in  the  final  attitude  of  agony,  of  resig- 
nation or  despair.  They  thought  them  all  dead,  but,  no ; 
some  were  living,  some  by  a  miracle  were  uninjured. 
And  these  were  dragged  from  the  pile  of  bodies  and 
made  to  dig  a  pit  and  to  tumble  into  it  the  bodies  of 
the  victims  of  the  tragedy — their  relatives,  their  neigh- 
bours, and  their  friends. 


203 


XXXI 

NAMUE,  ANDENNE,  AND  ELSEWHERE 

After  Dinant  we  began  to  have  news  of  Namur. 
Even  in  those  lovely  September  days  the  town  was  still 
living  under  a  reign  of  terror.  The  Germans,  after  a 
bombardment  lasting  two  hours,  had  entered  on  the 
twenty-second  of  August — the  same  Sunday  that  wit- 
nessed the  horror  at  Dinant.  At  six-thirty  that  evening 
soldiers,  with  fixed  bayonets  and  drawn  revolvers,  en- 
tered every  house  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  railway- 
station,  ordered  the  people  into  the  street;  in  the  great 
waiting-room  of  the  station  they  gathered  about  five 
hundred  of  them,  to  be  held  as  hostages.  But  after  an 
hour  the  women  and  children  were  released,  while  the 
men  and  youths  were  detained.  An  hour  later  a  German 
officer  entered  the  hall.  A  man  described  the  strange 
scene.  The  officer  stood  there  before  them  with  his 
heels  together,  then  suddenly  shouted: 

"Declaration!" 

He  paused;  then: 

"We  make  war  on  armies,  not  on  the  populations!" 

Then  he  went  on  to  announce  that  if  they  fired  on  the 
German  soldiers  they  would  all  be  shot,  and  he  told  them 
of  the  fate  of  Andenne. 

At  ten  o'clock  the  same  officer  returned  again  with 
his  strange  formula: 

"Silence!" 

"Declaration!" 

And  after  that: 

204 


NAMUR,  ANDENNE,  AND  ELSEWHERE 

"You  may  go  now.  If  you  have  arms  you  must  sur- 
render them  at  once,  even  your  penknives;  you  will  be 
searched  and  then  you  may  go." 

The  people  remained  calm,  and  in  a  pathetic  eiFort 
to  placate  the  soldiers,  even  served  meals  to  them.  And 
on  the  night  of  the  twenty- seventh,  suddenly — no  one 
knew  why — in  the  best  quarter  of  the  town,  the  Germans 
began  to  set  fire  to  the  houses.  The  Hotel  de  Ville  and 
nearly  all  the  houses  on  the  Place  d'Armes,  many  build- 
ings in  the  Place  Leopold,  and  many  residences  as  far 
as  the  Rue  des  Brasseurs  were  consumed  by  the  flames. 
And  it  was  a  final  touch — one  is  almost  tempted  to  say 
artistic — to  the  terror  of  that  night  that  all  through  its 
horrid,  tragic  hours  the  Germans  kept  the  church-bells 
tolling. 

And  one  night  just  as  I  was  going  to  bed,  a  man  told 
me  how  the  soldiers,  first  evacuating  the  German  pa- 
tients who  were  cared  for  there,  had  set  fire  to  I'Hospital 
Bribosid,'an  Eye  and  Ear  Hospital,  and  either  shot 
down  on  the  door  sill  the  Belgians  and  French  who  tried 
to  escape  or  left  them  to  perish  in  the  flames. 

They  will  tell  you  in  Belgium  that  Namur  escaped 
the  fate  of  Dinant  and  Louvain  because  there  was  a  dis- 
agreement among  the  Germans — some  wishing  to  de- 
stroy it,  while  the  milder  party  wished  merely  to  exact  a 
tribute  from  it.  I  know  nothing  of  the  facts,  except 
that  Namur  paid  a  contribution  of  32,000,000  francs. 

Andenne,  to  whose  fate  the  German  officer  had  al- 
luded in  his  declaration,  is  a  town  on  the  Meuse,  not 
far  from  Namur.    It  has,  or  had,  a  population  of  7800. 

On  the  morning  of  August  nineteenth,  in  the  course 
of  sharp  fighting,  the  Belgians  blew  up  the  bridge  across 
the  river  and  then  evacuated  the  town.     The  Uhlans 

205 


BELGIUM 

entered  immediately,  seized  the  city  treasury,  and  took 
the  Burgomaster  as  a  hostage.  In  the  afternoon  the  in- 
fantry entered,  and,  except  for  the  brutalities  of 
drunken  soldiers,  comparative  quiet  prevailed  during 
that  night.  The  next  afternoon  the  Germans  threw  a 
temporary  bridge  over  the  Meuse  and  began  crossing; 
the  inhabitants  were  watching  them  from  the  windows. 
Suddenly,  at  six  o'clock  P.  M.  there  was  a  shot,  then  a 
fusillade;  the  soldiers  on  the  bridge  wavered,  fell  back 
and,  panic-stricken,  began  shooting  wildly,  and  all  night 
the  killing  and  the  pillaging  went  on.  It  went  on  the 
next  day  and  at  four  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  August 
twenty-first  soldiers  began  breaking  into  houses  and 
turning  the  inmates  into  the  street.  The  crowd  was  or- 
dered to  walk  towards  the  Place  des  Tilleuls ;  those  who 
did  not  walk  fast  enough  were  shot  down.  A  Flemish 
clock-maker,  so  it  was  said,  came  out  of  his  dwelling  sup- 
porting his  aged  father-in-law;  he  was  ordered  to  hold 
up  his  hands,  but  he  could  not  do  so  without  letting  the 
old  man  fall,  so  a  soldier  struck  him  in  the  neck  with  an 
axe.  Arrived  at  the  Place  des  Tilleuls,  the  women  and 
children  were  separated  from  the  men,  and,  haphazard, 
the  soldiers  picked  out  forty  or  fifty  men  and  shot  them 
down  in  cold  blood. 

And  all  the  while,  day  and  night,  in  the  flaming  streets, 
the  pillage  and  the  murder  went  on,  until  nearly  three 
hundred  persons  were  killed.  The  man  who  described  it 
all  to  me  had  a  vivid  memory  of  a  "tall,  red-headed 
soldier"  who  was  particularly  conspicuous  by  the  fe- 
rocity with  which  he  wielded  his  axe  and  mutilated  his 
victims — a  baby  among  them,  in  the  arms  of  its  mother. 

At  Faliselle  French  soldiers  had  placed  machine-guns 
in  abandoned  houses  and  fired  on  the  Germans  as  they 

206 


NAMUR,  ANDENNE,  AND  ELSEWHERE 

approached.  The  Burgomaster  and  the  druggist  went 
out  to  meet  the  oncoming  Germans,  explained  that  the 
inhabitants  had  taken  ho  part  in  the  fusillade,  and  asked 
that  the  village  be  spared.  The  German  officers  ac- 
cepted the  explanation  and  ordered  them  to  dig  a  trench 
in  which  to  bury  the  soldiers  that  had  been  killed.  The 
Burgomaster  and  the  druggist  called  on  seven  other 
burghers  to  help  them,  and  when  the  work  was  done  the 
Germans  shot  the  nine  men  and  threw  them  into  the 
ditch  they  had  just  digged.  .  .  . 

At  Herve  several  notables  and  women  and  children 
were  torn  from  their  homes  and,  prodded  by  German 
bayonets,  driven  off  to  the  hamlet  of  La  Bouche,  near 
the  Fort  of  Evegnee.  As  in  most  of  these  tragic  pro- 
cessions, they  were  forced  to  hold  their  hands  above  their 
heads — and  as  they  went  they  were  shot  in  the  back. 

One  of  the  best  known  personalities  in  Belgium  told 
me  about  Rossignol.  The  village  is  on  the  River  Semois, 
and  found  itself  in  the  center  of  a  battle  between  French 
and  German  troops.  The  Germans  entered  and  sacked 
the  village  on  August  twenty-second ;  they  burned  every 
house  in  it,  not  one  was  left.  The  entire  male  population 
— one  hundred  and  seventeen  men — and,  for  some  rea- 
son the  gentleman  did  not  know,  one  woman  was  ar- 
rested. The  woman  was  Madame  Huriaux,  and  she  was 
French ;  perhaps  that  is  why  she  was  arrested.  The  next 
morning  they  were  all  taken  to  Arlon,  forced  to  walk  the 
entire  distance  under  heavy  escort,  and  reminded  con- 
stantly that  they  would  be  shot  upon  their  arrival.  No 
one  of  them  could  speak  German,  so  in  one  of  the  vil- 
lages through  which  they  passed,  knowing  of  a  man  who 
could  speak  that  language,  they  asked  him  to  accompany 
them  and  to  interpret  for  them  at  the  trial  which  they  ex- 

207 


BELGIUM 

pected  to  have  the  next  morning.  He  consented,  and 
joined  them.  Upon  their  arrival  at  Arlon,  without  any 
semblance  of  trial,  they  were  all  aligned  before  the  rail- 
way station  and  shot  down — including  the  interpreter, 
whom  the  Germans  refused  to  hear.  Madame  Huriaux, 
as  she  died,  shouted,  "Vive  la  France T 

When  the  Germans  arrived  at  Monceau-sur-Sam- 
bre,  a  suburb  of  Charleroi,  they  had  a  list  showing  the 
names  and  addresses  of  a  hundred  prominent  persons 
of  the  place,  which  it  is  believed  was  furnished  by  a  Ger- 
man who  had  worked  in  the  Ziromerman  factory  at 
Monceau.  They  seized  this  hundred  as  hostages ;  among 
them  were  five  well-known  citizens,  who  afterwards  re- 
lated their  experiences  to  me. 

The  Germans,  with  this  band  of  hostages,  set  out  on 
the  high  road  toward  Montigny,  forcing  their  prisoners 
■  to  run  with  their  uplifted  arms,  in  front  of  Uhlans  who 
prodded  them  with  their  lances  and  struck  them  with 
the  butts  of  their  guns,  and  when  they  would  not  run 
fast  enough,  charged  their  horses  upon  them.  One  of 
the  men  was  struck  so  violently  that  his  shoulder  was  dis- 
located ;  another,  who  as  the  result  of  kicks,  was  iU  for 
a  long  time,  tried  to  intervene  on  behalf  of  his  com- 
panions, but  himself  had  only  redoubled  blows  in  conse- 
quence. A  third,  who  was  lame,  could  not  run  fast 
enough  to  suit  the  soldiers,  they  became  enraged  and 
rained  more  blows  upon  him,  and  when  at  last,  unable 
to  go  further,  he  fell  on  the  road,  they  pitched  him  over 
a  hedge  into  a  field  and  left  him  there.  Two  or  three 
times  the  officers  gave  the  order  to  halt,  and  at  random 
took  one  man,  or  a  group  of  four  or  five  men,  and,  with- 
out listening  to  appeals  or  explanations,  shot  them  down. 

The  survivors  arrived  at  JNIontigny  and  were  placed 

208 


NAMUR,  ANDENNE,  AND  ELSEWHERE 

together  in  a  barn,  the  door  of  which  was  left  open  in  or- 
der that  those  within  might  look  on  while  the  soldiers 
piled  bales  of  straw  around  the  barn  and  saturated  it 
with  oil.  While  these  sinister  preparations  were  going 
on — it  lasted  all  night — soldiers  came  from  time  to  time, 
took  some  of  the  hostages,  and  shot  them  on  the  spot. 
An  officer  approached  one  of  the  five  and,  playing  with 
a  cartridge,  said : 

"This  is  for  you;  you  will  not  be  burned  there." 

And  then  suddenly — the  hostages  knew  not  why — the 
soldiers  seized  their  arms  and  under  a  sharp  order 
marched  away,  and  thus  strangely  delivered,  the  prison- 
ers fled,  pausing  only  for  a  last  glance  at  the  bodies  of 
their  companions  huddled  there  against  the  wall,  where 
they  had  been  shot  during  the  night. 

Madame  Thielemans  has  told  the  story  of  Aerschot 
better  than  I  or  any  one  can  tell  it.  But  it  may  be 
noted  that  the  greater  part  of  the  inhabitants  of  Aer- 
schot who  had  not  fled  the  town  were  shut  up  in  the 
church  for  days  with  hardly  any  food ;  on  August  twen- 
ty-eighth they  were  marched  to  Louvain  and  turned 
loose  to  be  fired  on  by  German  soldiers;  the  following 
day  they  were  marched  back  to  Aerschot  and  again  shut 
up — the  men  in  the  church,  the  women  in  "a  building  be- 
longing to  Mr.  Fontaine."  ISIany  women  and  girls  were 
violated  by  the  German  soldiers.  Seventy-eight  men 
were  taken  outside  the  town  and  literally  made  to  run 
the  gauntlet;  German  gendarmes  struck  them  with  the 
butts  of  their  revolvers — and  of  seventy-eight  men  only 
three  escaped  death.  Others  were  ranged  in  line,  the 
Germans  shooting  every  third  man. 

The  Germans  killed  over  one  hundred  and  fifty  of  the 
inhabitants  of  Aerschot,  among  them  eight  women  and 

209 


BELGIUM 

several  children,  and  on  the  sixth  of  September  three 
hundred  were  carted  off  in  wagons  to  Germany.  The 
pillage  and  burning  continued  for  days  and  a  great  quan- 
tity of  furniture  and  objects  of  art  were  sent  to  Ger- 
many. In  the  seven  small  villages  surrounding  Aer- 
schot  forty-two  persons  were  killed,  four  hundred  and 
sixty-two  were  sent  to  Germany,  one  hundred  and  fif- 
teen houses  were  burned  and  eight  hundred  and  twenty- 
three  were  pillaged. 


XXXII 

TAMINES 

I  HAVE  said  that  the  worst  of  all  was  Tamines,  but  per- 
haps it  only  seems  the  worst  because  it  made  such  an  im- 
pression on  the  minds  of  the  young  men  of  the  C.R.B. 
They  were  always  talking  of  it. 

"Yes,  but  have  you  seen  Tamines?"  they  would  say 
whenever  the  conversation,  with  a  kind  of  fatal  and 
persistent  irrelevancy,  turned  on  the  atrocities.  They 
knew  Tamines  only  as  they  passed  through  it  on  their 
way  to  and  from  the  Borinage,  and  all  they  had  seen  was 
the  poor  little  cemetery  there  in  the  church  yard, 
crowded  with  the  new-made  graves  whose  wooden 
crosses  all  bore  the  same  date. 

Many  of  the  young  men  of  the  C.R.B. ,  whose  experi- 
ence of  human  kind  had  been  as  fortunate  as  their  own 
natures  were  kind,  came  to  Belgium  with  the  scepticism 
that  did  so  much  credit  to  their  natures,  but  somehow 
that  little  graveyard  at  Tamines  was  more  potent  as 
proof  to  them  than  direct  evidence  could  have  been. 

Tamines  is  a  little  mining  town  on  the  Sambre,  down 
in  what  is  known  as  the  Borinage,  the  coal  fields  between 
Namur  and  Charleroi.  The  little  church  stands  on  the 
village-green  overlooking  the  river,  its  fa9ade  all 
splotched  where  the  bullets  and  mitraille  spattered 
against  it.  And  in  the  graveyard  beside  the  church 
there  are  hundreds  of  new-made  graves,  long  rows  of 
them,  each  with  its  small  wooden  cross  and  its  bit  of 
flowers.    The  crosses  stand  in  serried  rows,  so  closely 

211 


BELGIUM 

that  they  make  a  very  thicket,  with  scarcely  room  to 
walk  between  them.  They  were  all  new,  of  painted 
wood,  alike  except  for  the  names  and  the  ages — thirteen 
to  eighty-four.  But  they  all  bore  the  same  date ;  August 
22nd,  1914. 

The  Germans  had  been  in  Tamines  for  several  days, 
but  the  occupation  was,  what  would  be  called,  for  the 
times,  peaceful ;  the  only  deed  of  violence,  it  seems,  con- 
cerned a  little  girl  and  her  two  brothers;  they  were 
standing  on  the  village-green  staring  with  childish  won- 
der at  the  German  soldiers,  who  suddenly  turned  on 
them  and  shot  them.  The  French  were  holding  the 
bridge  on  the  Sambre ;  there  was  a  sharp  fight,  and  after 
the  Germans  had  carried  the  bridge  they  sent  the  main 
body  of  the  troops  on  after  the  French,  but  they  left 
enough  troops  behind  to  wreak  the  usual  vengeance  on 
the  civilians.  The  Germans  then  began  to  pillage  and 
burn  the  houses,  676  of  them;  then  they  turned  all  the 
inhabitants  into  the  street,  promiscuously,  marching 
them  about  in  bodies,  in  order,  as  the  man  from  whom  we 
had  the  story  said,  "to  terrorize  the  population  and  to 
frighten  the  women  and  children."  It  went  on  for  long 
hours ;  the  peoj^le  were  given  no  food  or  drink.  "During 
a  halt  they  forced  them  to  lie  beneath  the  machine-guns, 
then  they  lined  them  up  against  the  church-wall  and 
performed  a  mock  execution,  that  is  to  say,  the  soldiers 
fired  over  the  heads  of  the  victims."  It  was  the  eve- 
ning of  Saturday  the  twenty-second,  about  seven 
o'clock.  About  six  hundred  men  were  massed  in  St. 
Martin's  Square,  on  the  river-bank,  and  the  women  folk 
— their  wives,  mothers,  daughters — ^were  assembled  by 
the  soldiers  to  witness  the  scene. 

"They  lined  up  their  victims,"  said  the  man  from 

212 


TAMINES 

Tamines,  "in  three  rows  along  the  Sambre  and  tumbled 
(culbuterent)  one  hundred  and  fifty  of  them  head  over 
heels  into  the  river,  shoving  back  with  their  bayonets 
those  who  attempted  to  cling  to  the  bank;  only  four 
or  five  escaped  by  swimming.  During  this  first  execu- 
tion the  machine-guns  were  trained  on  the  remaining 
lines.  The  first  discharge  carried  away  all  but  twenty 
men — among  them  my  brother,  who  still  stood  facing 
the  enemy  in  spite  of  three  wounds  in  the  shoulder  and 
one  in  the  left  side  of  the  groin.  A  soldier  then  ap- 
proached him  and  knocked  him  over  with  a  blow  on  the 
head  with  his  gunstock." 

The  accounts  differ  slightly.  Some  witnesses  who 
escaped  out  of  the  country  and  gave  their  testimony 
either  before  the  British  or  the  Belgian  commissions, 
say  that  the  first  volley  was  fired  by  a  squad,  and  that 
after  this  a  number  of  men  jumped  into  the  river  and 
escaped  by  swimming,  while  others,  fired  upon  by  the 
soldiers  from  the  banks,  were  killed  as  they  struggled 
in  the  water ;  that  after  the  first  volley  the  Germans  or- 
dered the  survivors  to  arise,  and  that  it  was  at  this  time 
that  the  machine-gun  was  used.  Others  told  dreadful 
tales  of  the  killing  of  the  wounded.  That  there  should 
have  been  confused  accounts  of  what  transpired  there 
in  that  summer  twilight  on  that  village-green  by  the 
river-side,  with  its  demoniac  confusion  and  horrid  deeds, 
is  not  surprising.  Darkness  fell ;  soldiers,  using  electric- 
pocket  lamps,  prowled  through  the  rows  of  the  fallen, 
despatching  with  the  butts  of  their  rifles  or  with  their 
bayonets  those  who  still  breathed. 

Some  day,  no  doubt,  the  evidence  will  all  be 
marshalled  and  the  whole  truth  told.  There  is  no  avail- 
able testimony  from  German  sources;  for  in  the  White 

213 


BELGIUM 

Book,  issued  to  explain  and  justify  all  that  was  done  in 
Belgium,  there  is  no  reference  to  Tamines,  no  mention 
of  it. 

But  when  the  firing  had  ceased  that  night  there  were 
more  than  four  hundred  dead ;  women,  too,  and  children 
lying  there. 

The  bodies  lay  there  stark  on  the  green  all  night,  sen- 
tinels guarding  them;  the  next  day  they  were  buried* in 
one  trench.  Their  graves  are  now  nearby^  in  the  ceme- 
tery, and  the  ages  given  as  from  thirteen  to  eighty-four. 

"At  the  beginning  of  last  week" — our  narrator  came 
on  the  seventh  of  September — "the  inhabitants  were  able 
to  exhume  the  bodies  and  bury  decently  each  one.  Sev- 
eral days  were  spent  in  this  dismail  undertaking.  One 
of  my  brothers  and  my  brother-in-law  came  on  Wednes- 
day, September  second,  to  identify  the  body  of  my  poor 
brother,  and  begged  in  vain  for  permission  to  have  it  re- 
moved to  the  family  vault.  My  brothers  were  able  to 
satisfy  themselves — and  this  detail  is  not  without  im- 
portance— that  a  sum  of  three  thousand  francs  which 
my  brother  had  pocketed  before  leaving  his  house,  so 
that  it  would  not  be  stolen  when  the  place  came  to  be 
pillaged,  had  disappeared.  My  sister,  who  resides  in  the 
same  house  as  my  brother,  was  informed  of  this  fact. 
Highway  robbers  demand  your  money  or  your  life,  but 
the  Germans  take  both,  your  money  and  your  life!" 


XXXIII 


MAN  HAT  GESCHOSSEN 


There  was  a  certain  gruesome  monotony  in  the  stor- 
ies, after  all;  they  were  alike,  the  same  thing  over  and 
over  again,  everywhere  in  the  land — the  same  details, 
the  same  characteristics,  the  same  typical  deeds.  One 
comes  almost  to  recognize  it  as  the  work  of  a  certain 
type,  as  old  detectives  identify  the  work  of  yeggmen, 
and  trappers  from  the  signs,  tell  whether  Cheyennes  or 
Sioux  have  passed  that  way. 

The  Germans  enter  a  town,  take  hostages — the  burgo- 
master, some  councilmen,  one  or  two  notables ;  they  de- 
mand money,  food,  wine,  and  forage.  All  goes  well 
enough  for  a  few  days.  The  army  moves  on.  There  is 
a  reverse,  and  soldiers  swarm  back  into  the  town  crying 
"Man  hat  gescTiossen!"  Then  murder,  pillage,  fire,  rape, 
massacre.  This  happened  again  and  again:  at  Herve, 
at  Bligny,  Battice,  Retinne,  Schaffen,*  Charleroi,  Hou- 

^  The  priest's  story: 

The  Germans  led  me  into  my  garden  and  tied  my  hands  behind 
my  back.  They  ill-treated  me  in  every  possible  way ;  they  prepared 
a  gallows^  saying  that  they  were  going  to  hang  me;  one  of  them 
seized  in  turn  my  head,  nose,  and  ears,  going  through  the  gestures 
of  cutting  off  members.  They  forced  me  to  gaze  at  the  sun  for  a 
long  time.  They  smashed  the  arms  of  the  blacksmith  and  then 
killed  him.  Once  they  forced  me  into  the  Burgomaster's  burning 
house,  then  drew  me  out  again.  This  sort  of  thing  lasted  all  day. 
Toward  evening  they  told  me  to  look  at  the  church,  saying  it  would 
be  for  the  last  time.  At  a  quarter  to  seven  they  let  me  go,  striking 
me  with  their  riding-crops.  I  was  covered  with  blood  and  lay  uncon- 
scious.    Then  an  officer  had  me  placed  on  my  feet  and  ordered  me 

215 


BELGIUM 

gaerde,  at  Monceau-sur-Sambre,  at  Goegnies  and  at 
Termonde — occupied  twice  by  the  Germans,  who, 
driven  out  the  first  time  by  the  Belgian  troops,  returned 
and  almost  annihilated  the  town.^ 

The  tale  is  unending;  horror  piles  on  horror.  We 
heard  them  every  day  all  that  autumn,  all  that  winter; 
every  refugee  who  came  to  Brussels,  every  one  who  came 
in  from  the  country,  brought  them ;  and  they  will  be  told 
in  Belgium  for  a  century  to  come.  At  first  we  heard 
them  and  could  not  believe  them ;  and  when,  finally,  we 
did  believe  them,  because  there  was  no  doubting  any 
more,  we  scarcely  realised  them,  in  all  their  sheer  and 

to  go  on ;  a  few  meters  from  them  they  fired  on  me.  I  fell  and  was 
considered  dead.  To  this  fact  I  owe  my  life.  They  claimed  they 
had  been  fired  on  from  the  church  tower,  but  this  was  false,  for  the 
church  door  was  locked,  and  it  was  they  that  forced  it  open,  without 
finding  any  one  in  the  church. 

^  The  atrocities  have  been  made  the  subj  ect  of  two  serious  inves- 
tigations, that  of  the  Belgian  Commission,  headed  by  Mr.  Henri 
Carton  de  Wiart,  the  Belgian  Minister  of  Justice,  and  that  of  the 
British  Commission,  presided  over  by  Lord  Bryce,  formerly  British 
Ambassador  at  Washington.  Something  of  the  sweep  of  these  in- 
vestigations may  be  gathered  from  the  fact  that  the  report  of  the 
Belgian  Commission,  the  Grey  Booh  {Le  Livre  Gris)  Repouse  au 
Livre  Blanc  allemand,  etc.,  1916,  forms  an  in-qtiarto  volume  of 
525  pages.  Many  brochures  have  appeared  that  treat  of  these 
atrocities,  and  recently  an  excellent  study,  "The  German  Army 
at  Louvain  and  the  German  White  Book"  (L'Armee  allemande  a 
Louvain  en  aout  lOlJf.,  et  le  Livre  Blanc  du  10  mai  1915),  has 
been  published,  which  gives  a  sober  and  convincing  account  of  the 
tragedy  of  Louvain^  and  contains  an  able  analysis  of  the  White 
Book.  IMany  of  the  facts  given  in  this  work  are  borne  out  by  my 
notes.  The  report  of  the  British  Commission,  that  is  to  say  the 
conclusions  drawn  from  the  evidence  heard  before  the  Commission, 
contains  38  in-quarto  pages,  while  the  evidence  itself  forms  a  two- 
hundred-page  volume  of  the  same  dimensions. 

216 


MAN  HAT  GESCHOSSEN 

utter  savagery.  Scores  and  hundreds  and  thousands  of 
such  recitals  were  told  by  the  refugees,  from  all  those 
doomed  towns  in  eastern  Belgium;  myriad  repetitions 
of  individual  instances,  all  essentially  the  same,  until  the 
mass  of  them  overpowered  the  imagination  and  sat- 
urated the  mind  with  their  horror.  Words  lost  their 
meaning,  were  unable  longer  to  depict  the  sinister  and 
tragic  significance  of  the  events  they  would  describe,  and 
became  cold  and  bald,  like  statistics  or  terms  of  gen- 
eralisation. It  all  seemed  too  grotesque,  too  patently 
impossible,  there,  before  one,  in  Brussels,  in  the  midst 
of  familiar  things,  in  our  own  times — in  the  "so-called 
twentieth  century,"  as  the  English  parson  said,  with  a 
humour  that  I  trust  was  not  unconscious. 

I  might  have  had  hundreds  of  such  tales,  but  I  did  not 
seek  them ;  I  had  those  that  were  brought  to  me,  and  I 
have  struck  out  all  that  seems  like  exaggeration.  I  was 
representing  a  neutral  Power  and  I  made  it  a  point  of 
honour  to  respect  that  neutrality  and  to  see  that  it  was 
respected;  only  in  the  case  of  Louvain  did  I  seek  in- 
formation, and  then  I  felt  that  I  had  the  right  to  do 
so  because  it  was  reported  that  American  interests  were 
involved.  Finally  I  ceased  to  listen  to  the  stories  and 
turned  the  relators  over  to  Gibson  or  to  de  Leval,  and  at 
last  even  they  ceased  to  listen.  Of  what  use?  It  was 
all  cumulative,  corroborative.  Any  good  trial  judge 
would  have  said  long  since:  "I  don't  care  to  hear  any 
more  on  that  point." 

And  so  I  left  out  of  this  account  much  that  was 
told  and  have  confined  my  statements  to  proved  and  ad- 
mitted facts.  I  have  not  told  about  the  old  soldier  in 
Brussels,  un  vieux  sahreur,  who  used  to  tell  his  "group" 
in  the  estaminet  when  he  sipped  his  faro  of  an  afternoon 

217 


BELGIUM 

how,  walking  along  the  road  from  Alost  to  Brussels  on 
the  twentieth  of  August,  he  saw  a  Uhlan  stab  a  boy,  a 
little  mannekcj  with  his  lance,  and  how  he,  the  vieux 
sabreur,  had  folded  his  arms  and  shouted  ^'LdcheT  three 
times  to  the  Uhlan. 

The  reason  I  would  not  offer  this  in  evidence  is  the 
fact,  principally,  of  that  detail  about  the  folded  arms; 
that  is  of  the  cinema,  indubitably,  and  I  have  a  con- 
stitutional dislike  for  romanticism,  and  one  finds  as  much 
of  it  among  soldiers,  with  their  swanking,  as  among*  the 
novelists. 

There  are  many  such  tales  and  there  are  many  that 
I  can  not  bring  myself  to  repeat;  they  belong  to  the 
smoking-room,  and  even  there  one  would  be  ashamed  to 
repeat  them;  they  are  more  proper  for  pathological 
study  than  for  the  mere  curiosity  of  the  lay  mind.  Rape 
was  common,  and  at  certain  places  even  nuns  were  not 
spared.^ 

One  of  the  allegations  that  seems  to  have  aroused  an 
almost  morbid  curiosity  is  that  which  relates  to  the  cut- 
ting off  of  hands  of  little  children;  we  used  to  hear  the 
story  often  in  Belgium,  but  never  in  a  form  that  seemed 
to  me  wholly  convincing.* 

^  Cardinal  Mercier's  correspondence  with  the  late  Governor-Gen- 
eral von  Bissing  on  this  delicate  point  is  important, 

*  In  the  report  of  the  English  Commission  there  is  given  the 
testimony  of  three  witnesses  who  claim  to  have  seen  this  thing  at 
Malines.  We  had  that  story,  too,  immediately  after  the  fall  of 
Antwerp,  but  the  testimony  is  excluded  from  the  report  of  the 
Belgian  Commission. 


XXXIV 

THE  GERMAN  STATE 

I  USED  to  recall  the  American  lady  who,  in  those  first 
days  of  the  war,  came  to  the  Legation  in  fear.  I  had 
tried  to  calm  her,  assured  her  that  she  would  be  safe — 
that  modern  armies  did  not  make  war  on  civilians,  much 
less  on  women. 

"But  these  are  Germans!"  she  said,  as  though  I  had 
overlooked  the  prime  factor  in  the  equation. 

I  had  long  since  learned  that  arguments  never  con- 
vince. I  supposed  that  she  was  but  reflecting  the  opinion 
that  was  a  la  mode  at  Paris,  where  she  had  so  long  lived. 
One  can  not  indict  a  whole  nation,  as  Burke  said,  but 
perhaps  her  instinctive  theory  was  as  good  as  any  to  ex- 
plain the  dreadful  deeds  that  had  been  done.  People 
usually  translate  problems  into  the  terms  of  their  own 
imderstanding. 

Field-Marshal  Baron  von  der  Goltz,  the  old  Pasha, 
came  to  Belgium  announcing  the  doctrine,  amazing  in 
our  Western  eyes,  that  *'the  punishment  for  hostile  acts 
falls  not  only  on  the  guilty,  but  on  the  innocent  as  well." 

The  doctrine,  of  course,  is  implicit  in  the  German 
theory  of  the  State.  The  State  is  conceived  as  something 
with  an  independent,  ideal,  unrelated  existence,  wholly 
dissociated  from  the  individuals  that  compose  it — an 
entity  suspended  somewhere  between  the  heaven  and  the 
earth,  like  the  coffin  of  Mahomet.  It  does  not  exist  for 
the  benefit  of  the  individual,  but,  so  far  as  he  is  of  any  ac- 
count in  it  at  all,  he  exists  for  it.    Hegel,  it  seems,  was 

219 


BELGIUM 

the  original  inventor  of  the  theory,  and  students  of  Ger- 
man metaphysics  can  trace  it  all  back  to  Kant's  cate- 
gorical imperative  of  duty,  and  to  Goethe's  principle  of 
self-culture — doctrines  distorted  into  something  quite 
otherwise  than  that  which  their  originators  intended. 
They  will  cite  Fichte,  teaching  that  the  citizen  must  sink 
his  individuality  in  the  State;  Treitschke,  with  his  no- 
tion that  the  state  is  a  half-divine  entity  based  on  force, 
and  that  therefore  the  army  is  the  highest  manifestation 
of  the  State  and  war  its  chief  business,  "a  radical  medi- 
cine for  the  ills  of  state,"  which  "the  living  God  will  take 
good  care  .  .  .  shall  not  cease";  Clausewitz,  preaching 
the  duty  of  every  man  to  be  in  the  army ;  and  Nietzsche, 
scorning  the  Christian  tenets  as  soft  and  effeminate,  in- 
culcating the  dogma  of  moral  irresponsibility.  Goethe's 
self -culture  becomes  a  kind  of  sublimated  selfishness,  and 
into  all  this  muddle  a  perversion  of  Darwin's  theory  of 
the  struggle  for  life,  and  the  survival  of  the  fittest  is 
mixed,  until  Bernhardi,  getting  down  to  business, 
teaches  that  might  makes  right,  and  that  nothing  suc- 
ceeds like  success.  Thus  is  evolved  a  nation  of  super- 
men, all  doing  the  goose-step. 

For  forty  years  these  doctrines  were  dinned  into  the 
German  ear;  pamphleteers,  novelists,  soldiers,  states- 
men, scientists,  professors,  theologians,  and  pastors  all 
preached  and  expounded  them.  The  army  became  the 
avatar  of  the  state.  Every  man  is  in  the  army,  and  there 
is  but  one  law,  one  duty,  one  principle,  one  religion — 
obey.  The  private  obeys  the  corporal,  the  corporal 
obeys  the  sergeant,  the  sergeant  obeys  the  lieutenant, 
the  lieutenant  the  captain,  and  so  on  up  the  scaffolding 
of  the  mounting  grades,  until  all  power,  all  authority,  all 
privilege,  is  vested  finally  in  the  generals,  the  field- 

220 


THE  GERMAN  STATE 

marshals,  and  the  General  Staff.  Pastors  exist  only  to 
assure  them  of  the  approval  of  the  Teutonic  god,  pro- 
fessors to  write  learned  justifications  of  their  crimes,  and 
scientists  to  invent  new  and  more  terrible  methods  of 
destruction.  For  forty-four  years  the  writers  and  think- 
ers of  Germany  had  been  at  work  upon  this  theory — 
forty-four  years  of  what  laborious  study,  of  what  pro- 
digious toil!  There  is  something  almost  pathetic  in  the 
spectacle;  one  ray  of  humour  visiting  those  patient, 
docile,  heavy  minds  would  have  spared  them  all  their 
pains — and  made  the  empire  impossible.  Forty-four 
years  and  whole  libraries  of  ponderous  tomes  to  define  a 
theory  that  Louis  XIV,  without  hypocrisy,  and  with  no 
illusions,  with  French  clearness,  French  logic,  French 
cynicism  and  French  wit,  put  into  a  word,  "UEtat,  c'est 
moi!" 

The  trouble  with  theories  is  that  when  they  under- 
take to  realise  themselves,  to  body  themselves  forth,  they 
have  nothing  to  do  it  with  except  men.  I  am  sure  that 
those  old  men  of  the  Landsturm,  in  the  little  round  caps 
and  buckles  with  "Gott  mit  Uns"  on  their  bellies,  and 
the  boots  and  the  rifles  with  the  long  shining  bayonets, 
whom  we  used  to  see  standing  in  ecstasies  before  the  win- 
dows of  the  delicatessen  shops  in  Brussels,  where  the 
red  sausages  glistened  and  the  golden  Dutch  cheeses 
gleamed,  had  never  heard  of  Nietzsche  or  of  Bernhardi 
or  of  Treitschke.  They  were  neither  philosophers  nor 
mystics,  and  were  all  unaware  that  they  were  super- 
men. All  they  had  heard  of  was  the  burgundy  of  Bel- 
gium, the  champagne  and  the  women  of  France — and 
franc s-tireurs.  In  their  pockets  they  carried  inflam- 
mable pastels  and  the  like,  phrase-books  giving  alternate 
translations  in  German  and  French  of  such  sentences  as : 

221 


BELGIUM 

"Hands  up!" 

"Carry  out  all  the  furniture!" 

"I  am  thirsty;  bring  me  some  beer,  gin,  rum." 

"You  have  to  supply  a  barrel  of  wine  and  a  keg  of 
beer!" 

"If  you  lie  to  me  I  will  have  you  shot  immediately!" 

"Lead  me  to  the  wealthiest  inhabitants  of  this  village. 
I  have  orders  to  requisition  several  barrels  of  wine." 

"Show  us  the  way  to If  you  lead  us  astray 

you  will  be  shot!" 

For  forty  years  German  writers  had  been  preaching 
the  duty  of  waging  war  not  only  on  armies,  but  on  civil 
populations  as  well,  and  the  German  mind  was  saturated 
with  the  notion  that  in  France  the  civil  population  was 
composed  of  francs-tireurs.  Not  only  the  military  writ- 
ers, but  the  German  romanticists  had  filled  their  books 
with  the  idea.  Their  popular  romances  abound  in  tales 
of  the  terrible  French  francs-tireurs  with  their  ferocious 
names,  the  eidolons  of  those  Tartarins  the  Germans  had 
heard  of  in  France  in  1870,  and  those  tales  were  told 
everywhere  in  the  Prussian  Germany  that  grew  up  after- 
ward. 

In  the  first  days  of  the  war,  arrived  in  a  village  that 
was  on  the  frontier,  near  Malmedy,  partly  in  Belgium 
and  partly  in  Germany,  it  is  said — I  can  not  vouch  for 
this  story — that  the  German  soldiers  at  once  began  burn- 
ing houses,  and  that  there  were  cries  of  "Nein!  Nein! 
Dies  ist  noch  Deutsche!'^  At  any  rate,  there  is  little 
doubt  that  along  the  Route  des  Trois  Cheminees  the 
peasants  were  assembled  under  guard  by  the  soldiers 
and  pointed  out  to  the  oncoming  columns  as  specimens 

222 


THE  GERMAN  STATE 

of  the  Belgian  francs-tireurs  that  had  fired  on  their  com- 
rades ! 

The  result  was  that  when  the  German  soldiers  entered 
Belgium  they  were  in  such  a  highly  excited  state,  in  a 
condition  of  such  fear,  that  they  saw  a  franc-tireur  in 
every  peasant,  in  every  peaceful  civilian;  the  lightest 
sound,  the  crackling  of  a  twig,  the  slamming  of  a  door, 
brought  the  cry  "Man  hat  geschossenr  and  the  stam- 
pede and  carnage  began.  Even  officers  were  not  free 
from  the  obsession.  A  general,  quartered  in  a  ministry 
in  Brussels  in  the  autumn  of  1914,  was  awakened  by  an 
unusual  sound — a  steady,  persistent  tick-tick-tick — 
there  in  the  silent  watches  of  the  night;  he  arose,  sum- 
moned the  guard,  told  them  that  there  was  an  infernal 
machine  at  work,  ordered  them  to  ransack  the  house 
from  attic  to  cellar,  where  at  last  they  found — a  defec- 
tive water-meter. 

To  the  general,  of  course,  and  no  doubt  to  all  those 
with  loftier  seats  in  the  hierarchy,  the  doctrines  that  I 
have  cited  meant  something;  war  had  become  a  sacred 
thing,  and  a  German's  duty  first  of  all  was  to  the  State. 
An  official  at  Brussels  one  day,  while  he  was  smoking  a 
cigar  with  a  relish  that  seemed  entirely  human,  said,  with 
an  air  of  great  merit,  and  no  doubt  with  entire  sincerity: 

"If  that  sentinel  out  there  should  tell  me  to  throw 
away  this  cigar  I  should  do  so,  unhesitatingly  and  in- 
stantly." 

Thus  the  peculiar  conception  of  "duty"  came  before 
conscience,  before  honour,  before  every  moral  considera- 
tion. Distinctions  become  blurred,  and  finally  fade  from 
the  mind.  Men  who  in  their  private  or  personal  capacity 
would  not  think  of  countenancing  such  deeds  would 
permit,  even  command,  any  brutality,  any  wickedness, 

223 


BELGIUM 

any  atrocity,  the  iiioiiient  they  could  say  to  themselves 
that  it  was  being  done  for  the  State.  In  this  mystical 
conception  the  deed  becomes  a  high  and  holy  thing.  The 
uniform  comes  to  possess  a  magic  quality;  the  moment 
it  is  on  his  back  the  wearer  becomes  something  other 
than  a  man.  And  when  anything  that  a  man,  provided 
he  wears  a  uniform,  desires  to  do,  can  be  justified  and 
approved  in  conscience  merely  by  saying  that  it  is  for 
the  benefit  of  the  State,  there  is  no  end  to  the  possibility 
of  mischief. 

The  White  Book,  issued  on  May  10,  1915,  to 
justify  the  deeds  of  the  German  army  in  Belgium,  ad- 
mits all  the  essential  facts  and  attempts  a  justification 
— a  plea  in  confession  and  avoidance.  The  claim  was 
not  that  here  and  there  some  maddened  and  desperate 
peasant  had  fired  from  behind  hay  ricks  or  trees — that 
might  have  been  conceivable,  perhaps  not  unnatural,  un- 
der all  the  circumstances ;  it  was  not  even  that  there  were 
here  and  there  bands  of  francs-tireurs;  but  that  the 
whole  nation,  secretly  and  officially  organized,  had 
arisen  and  flung  itself  on  the  invader.  "Man  hat  ge- 
schossenr  becomes  ''Der  Belgischen  Volkshrieg" 

In  Brussels,  to  convict  a  Belgian  of  anything,  the 
word  of  a  German  soldier  sufficed;  he  did  not  have  to 
give  evidence  of  the  fact,  much  less  prove  it — he  merely 
had  to  assert  it.  It  may  be  that  some  similar  notion  ac- 
counts for  the  fact  that  in  the  White  Book  there  is  no 
convincing  evidence  that  the  Germans  were  actually 
fired  upon,  and  indeed,  as  it  seems,  that  no  serious  ef- 
fort was  made  judicially  to  establish  the  fact.  As  to 
have  a  town  given  over  to  fire  and  sword  it  sufficed 
simply  for  a  German  soldier  to  cry  ''Man  hat  geschos- 
senl"  when  justification  is  attempted  it  seems  sufficient 

224 


THE  GERMAN  STATE 

to  say:  "The  Belgians  fired  on  us."  The  fact  that  in  a 
moment  of  panic  some  soldier  cried  ''Man  hat  geschos- 
sen!"  is  offered  as  proof  that  some  one  did  shoot  at  them. 
Three  hundred  times  the  White  Book  contents  itself 
with  repeating  the  unsupported  allegation,  "They  have 
fired  upon  us."  It  was,  of  course,  sufficient  for  Ger- 
many, for  *'a  German  soldier  said  so." 

In  the  White  Book  there  is  not  a  word  about  Tamines, 
not  a  word  about  Surice,  not  a  word  about  Spontin,  not 
a  word  about  Namur,  not  a  word  about  Ethe,  not  a  word 
about  Gommeries,  not  a  word  about  Latour — not  a 
word,  in  short,  about  sixty-five  other  places  where  there 
were  pillage  and  massacre  and  incendiarism. 

The  testimony,  most  of  it  gathered  for  the  Louvain 
inquiry,  consists  almost  wholly  of  such  statements  as 
those  of  Berghausen  and  his  comrades;  they  were  the 
star  witnesses. 

"Men  of  all  professions,"  says  the  White  Book, 
"workers,  manufacturers,  doctors,  professors,  even 
clergymen — yes,  even  women  and  children,  were  taken 
with  weapons  in  their  hands,  in  the  regions  from  which 
the  regular  troops  had  retired.  They  were  shooting 
from  houses  or  from  gardens,  from  roofs  and  from  cel- 
lars, from  fields  and  from  forests,  on  the  Germans. 
They  used  means  that  would  never  be  employed  by  regu- 
lar troops — shot-guns  and  lead-shot,  old  revolvers  and 
old  pistols — and  numerous  were  the  men  found  muti- 
lated or  scalded  with  boiling  tar  or  boiling  water.  In 
short,  it  is  not  to  be  doubted  that  the  German  wounded 
were  struck  and  killed  by  the  Belgian  population,  and 
also  greatly  mutilated;  nor  is  it  to  be  doubted  that 
women  and  even  girls  participated  in  these  shameful  ex- 
ploits.    German  wounded  had  their  eyes  punctured, 

225 


BELGIUM 

their  noses  and  ears  and  fingers  and  their  sexual  organs 
mutilated,  their  bodies  ripped  open ;  in  other  cases  Ger- 
man soldiers  were  poisoned,  sprayed  with  boiling  liquid, 
or  roasted,  so  that  they  suffered  an  atrocious  death." 

And  by  an  even  more  extensive  flight  of  the  imagina- 
tion one  German  soldier  says  that  he  saw  a  Belgian  boy 
going  about  in  a  field  with  a  basket  filled  with  the  eyes 
of  German  soldiers. 

And  hence,  it  was  necessary  to  do  what  was  done  at 
Vise,  at  Dinant,  at  Aerschot,  at  Louvain,  and  a  hun- 
dred other  towns  sacked,  pillaged  and  burned,  with 
masses  mowed  down  by  machine-guns,  children  mur- 
dered and  women  raped.  And  yet,  if  the  alleged 
firing  by  civilians  was  done  on  such  a  scale  it  would 
seem  rather  simple  to  produce  some  direct  evidence  of 
the  fact,  and  to  show  who  fired  on  the  soldiers  and 
where,  and  when,  and  the  names  of  some,  at  least,  of  the 
numerous  victims. 

Doubtless  it  is  not  given  to  us,  with  our  Common  Law 
notions  of  evidence  and  of  proof,  to  penetrate  the 
mystery  of  the  German  idea  of  justice.  "Man  hat  ge- 
schossenr    A  German  soldier  said  so.    That  settles  it. 

It  is,  of  course,  inconvenient  to  argue  with  an  op- 
ponent who  has  such  a  supreme  and  impregnable  refuge. 
Attempts  to  have  all  the  facts  submitted  to  some  im- 
partial tribunal,  as  well  as  appeals,  were  all  in  vain.^ 

^  The  Belgian  Senator,  Charles  Magnetti,  Grand  Master  of  the 
Belgian  Free  Masons,  wrote  a  letter  on  September  27,  1914,  pro- 
posing to  the  Grand  Lodge  of  Germany  that  a  commission  of  inquiry 
be  constituted  with  delegates  from  the  lodges  of  neutral  countries, 
but  the  proposal  was  not  accepted. 

On  January  24,  1915,  Count  von  Wengersky,  Kreischef  at 
Malines,  liaving  asked  for  proof  as  to  the  murder  of  priests  in  the 

226 


THE  GERMAN  STATE 

Monseigneur  Rutten,  Bishop  of  Liege,  as  early  as 

diocese,  Cardinal  Mercier  wrote,  proposing  that  an  impartial  inves- 
tigation be  made: 

"To  this  end  I  have  the  honour  to  propose  to  you,  M.  le  Comte, 
and  to  propose,  by  your  kind  medium,  to  the  German  authorities, 
that  the  Commission  of  Inquiry  be  composed  equally  of  German 
delegates  and  Belgian  lawyers,  to  be  designated  by  our  chief  magis- 
trate and  presided  over  by  the  representative  of  a  neutral  country. 
I  am  pleased  to  believe  that  His  Excellency,  the  Minister  of  the 
United  States,  will  not  refuse  to  accept  this  presidency,  or  to  en- 
trust it  to  a  delegate  chosen  by  him." 

No  reply  was  made  to  this  proposal. 

Monseigneur  Heylen,  Bishop  of  Namur,  on  October  31,  1915, 
courageously  published  a  note  in  which  he  subjected  the  White  Book 
to  the  pitiless  examination  of  a  remorseless  logic.  On  November 
6  he  sent  a  letter  to  the  Governor  General  in  Belgium,  protesting 
against  the  allegation  and  conclusions  in  the  document;  and  he 
forwarded  a  similar  protestation  to  Rome. 

The  Bishop  of  Liege,  Monseigneur  Rutten,  sent  protests  not  only 
to  Commandant  Bayer,  but  renewed  the  same  protest  on  August 
21  to  General  von  Kolewe,  who  had  then  been  appointed  Military 
Governor  of  Liege.  No  answer  was  received  to  any  of  these 
protests. 

Identical  protests,  but  amplified  and  energetically  accentuated, 
says  the  Bishop,  were  renewed  in  an  interview  with  the  Governor 
General  in  Belgium,  Field-Marshal  the  Baron  von  der  Goltz  Pasha, 
then  lodged  in  the  Episcopal  Palace  with  his  staff,  on  August  29- 

A  priest  accredited  by  His  Eminence,  Cardinal  Piffle,  Prince 
Archbishop  of  Vienna,  made  an  inquiry  in  Belgium  in  the  name  of 
the  Priesterverein  of  Vienna,  the  results  of  which  were  published  in 
the  Tijd  of  Amsterdam  and  in  the  Politiken  of  Copenhagen.  The 
verdict  was  overwhelmingly  against  the  German  military  authorities. 
So  far  as  is  known  this  report  was  never  published  in  Germany  or 
in  Austria. 

In  their  response  to  the  French  Catholics,  the  German  Catholics, 
speaking  of  the  violation  of  nuns,  say  that,  when  the  German  Gov- 
ernor General  in  Belgium  addressed  himself  on  the  subject  to  the 
Belgian  Bishops,  the  Archbishop  of  Malines   (Cardinal  Mercier) 

227 


BELGIUM 

August  18,  1914,  had  written  to  Commandant  Bayer, 
German  Military  Governor  of  Liege : 

"I  appeal  to  your  heart  as  a  man  and  a  Christian  and  I 
beseech  you  to  put  a  stop  to  the  executions  and  reprisals. 
I  have  been  informed  repeatedly  that  several  villages 
have  been  destroyed,  that  many  notables — among  them 
priests — ^have  been  shot,  that  others  have  been  arrested, 
and  all  have  protested  that  they  were  innocent.  As  I 
know  the  priests  of  my  parish,  I  can  not  believe  that  any 
one  of  them  was  guilty  of  acts  of  cruelty  to  German  sol- 
diers. I  have  visited  several  hospitals  and  have  seen 
that  they  are  as  well  cared  for  as  the  Belgians;  they 
themselves  have  testified  to  this.  I  do  not  wish  to  discuss 
past  events,  I  only  ask  of  you,  in  the  name  of  Humanity 
and  of  God,  to  prevent  acts  of  reprisal  against  our  harm- 
less population.  These  reprisals  can  no  longer  have  any 
useful  object,  but  will  only  push  the  population  to  the 
depths  of  despair. 

caused  it  to  be  made  known  that  he  could  furnish  no  precise  infor- 
mation as  to  any  case  whatever  of  the  violation  of  nuns  in  his  dio- 
cese. Thereupon  Cardinal  Mercier  published  his  correspondence 
with  Baron  von  Bissing  on  this  delicate  subject,  in  which  he  said 
that  the  priests  were  bound  to  respect  secrets  of  the  confessional, 
and  physicians  those  of  their  profession;  that  he  would  not  submit 
any  nun  to  an  interrogatory,  and  that  no  good  could  come  from  a 
discussion  of  the  subject.  But  when  his  words  were  misinterpreted, 
he  wrote: 

"I  wrote,  indeed,  to  the  Governor-General  that  I  could  furnish 
no  precise  information,  because  my  conscience  forbade  me  to  de- 
liver to  any  tribunal  whatever  the  information,  alas !  too  precise, 
which  I  possess.  Assaults  on  nuns  have  been  committed.  I  believe 
them,  happily,  to  be  not  numerous,  but  they  occurred,  to  my  knowl- 
edge, several  times." 

The  Cardinal  thereupon  published  in  its  entirety  his  correspond- 
ence with  the  Governor  General. 

228 


THE  GERMAN  STATE 

"I  should  be  pleased  to  discuss  the  matter  with  you, 
for  I  am  confident  that  it  is  your  wish  as  much  as  it  is 
mine  to  lessen  the  hardships  of  war  rather  than  to  in- 
crease them.  At  the  last  minute  I  learn  that  the  curate 
of  R has  been  arrested  and  conducted  to  the  Chart- 
reuse (a  fort).  I  do  not  know  what  the  accusation 
against  him  is,  but  I  do  know  that  he  is  incapable  of 
committing  a  hostile  act  toward  your  soldiers;  he  is  a 
good  priest,  gentle  and  charitable.  I  can  vouch  foF  him, 
and  beg  you  to  send  him  back  to  his  parish." 

And  Cardinal  Mercier  and  the  five  Bishops  of  Bel- 
gium, on  November  24,  1915,  wrote  a  collective  let- 
ter to  the  Cardinals  and  Bishops  of  Germany,  Bavaria 
and  Austria,  in  which  this  touching  passage  occurs : 

"You  will  say,  perhaps:  'It  is  past;  let  us  forget  it.  Instead 
of  pouring  oil  on  the  fire  you  had  better  strive  to  pardon  and  to 
collaborate  with  the  Power  in  Occupation,  whose  sole  desire  is  to 
heal  the  wounds  of  the  unfortunate  Belgian  people.'  Oh !  Your 
Eminences  and  dear  Colleagues,  do  not  add  irony  to  injustice.  Have 
we  not  suffered  enough.''  Have  we  not  been,  are  we  not  continuing 
to  be,  tortured  with  sufficient  cruelty? 

"You  say:  'All  is  past;  accept  it  with  resignation;  forget.' 
"The  past!  But  all  the  wounds  are  bleeding!  There  is  not  an 
honest  heart  that  is  not  inflamed  with  indignation.  While  we  hear 
our  Government  say  to  the  world:  'He  is  twice  guilty  who,  after 
having  violated  the  rights  of  others,  still  attempts,  with  the  most 
audacious  cynicism,  to  justify  himself  by  attributing  to  his  victim 
faults  that  the  latter  never  committed,'  our  people  can  only  keep 
back  with  violence  words  of  malediction.  Only  yesterday  a  farmer 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Malines  learns  that  his  son  has  died  on  the 
battlefield.  A  priest  tries  to  console  him  and  the  brave  man  re- 
plies: 'Oh!  This  one;  I  give  him  to  my  country!  But  my  eldest 
son,  they  took  him  from  me,  the  accursed  ones !  and,  like  cowards, 
shot  him  and  threw  him  into  a  ditch !'  " 

229 


BELGIUM 

It  has  been  said  that  after  Louvain  orders  were  given 
at  Berhn  that  the  policy  of  Schrecklichkeit  be  discon- 
tinued. If  such  orders  were  given  they  were  neither  en- 
forced nor  obeyed.  All  through  the  battles  of  Septem- 
ber about  Antwerp  the  same  thing  went  on;  the  trage- 
dies of  Tremonde,  of  Lierre,  were  enacted  there.  And 
after  Antwerp,  when  in  October  the  Germans  got  down 
into  West  Flanders,  where  the  Belgian  army  made  its 
heroitc  stand  along  the  Yser,  and  blocked  the  way  to 
Calais,  the  tragedies  of  Roulers,  of  Furnes,  of  Ypres, 
of  Perv'yse,  of  Boesinghe  were  the  result. 

And  right  here  we  have  the  key  of  the  mystery.  If 
one  will  take  a  fairly  large  map  of  Belgium  and  lay 
one's  right  hand  upon  it  with  the  wrist  at  Aix-la-Cha- 
pelle,  the  base  of  the  palm  on  Liege,  and  the  fingers  out- 
spread toward  the  Belgian  coast,  the  thumb  will  touch 
Dinant,  the  index  finger  Nivelles,  the  middle  finger 
Brussels,  the  second  finger  Louvain  and  Malines,  and 
the  little  finger  Antwerp.  The  five  fingers  thus  dis- 
posed will  represent  in  a  crude  figure  the  progress  of  the 
German  forces  that  in  August  1914,  invaded  the  little 
kingdom  they  had  sworn  to  protect  and  defend.  The 
first  of  these — that  went  southward  at  about  the  line 
marked  by  the  thumb — was  the  army  of  the  Crown 
Prince.  The  next  was  the  army  of  the  Duke  of  Wiirt- 
emburg,  the  next  the  army  of  von  Hansen,  the  next  the 
army  of  von  Biilow,  and  last  the  army  of  von  Kluck. 
And  it  was  in  the  area  covered  by  the  hand  that  the 
atrocities  for  the  most  part — until  the  Germans  got  into 
Flanders — were  committed. 

As  one  studies  the  evidence  one  is  struck  at  the  outset 
by  a  fact  so  general  that  it  must  exclude  the  hypothesis 
of  mere  coincidence,  and  that  is  that  these  wholesale  mas- 

230 


THE  GERMAN  STATE 

sacres  followed  immediately  upon  some  reverse  which 
the  Germans  had  sustained.  Their  army  is  checked  by 
the  guns  at  the  forts  to  the  east  of  Liege,  and  the  hor- 
rors of  Vise,  Verviers,  Bligny,  Battice,  Herve,  and 
twenty  villages  follow.  Checked  before  Namur,  they 
sack  Andenne,  Bouvignies,  and  Champignon.  Com- 
pelled to  give  battle  to  the  French  army  in  the  Belgian 
Ardennes,  they  ravage  the  beautiful  valley  of  the  Se- 
mois,  destroy  the  village  of  Rossignol,  and  exterminate 
its  entire  male  population.  Checked  again  by  the 
French  on  the  Meuse,  the  awful  carnage  of  Dinant  re- 
sults; and  on  the  Sambre,  by  the  same  army,  they  burn 
Charleroi  and  enact  the  appalling  tragedy  of  Tamines. 
At  Mons  the  English  balk  them,  and  all  over  the  Bor- 
inage  there  is  systematic  destruction,  pillage,  and  mur- 
der. The  Belgian  army  drives  them  back  from  Malines, 
and  Louvain  is  doomed.  The  Belgian  army,  falling  back 
and  fighting  in  retreat,  takes  refuge  in  the  forts  of  Ant- 
werp, and  the  burning  and  sack  of  Hougaerde,  Wavre, 
Ottignies,  Grimde,  Neerlinter,  Weert  St.-George,  Shaf- 
fen  and  Aerschot  follow.  The  Belgian  troops  inflict 
serious  losses  on  the  Germans  in  the  south  of  the  prov- 
ince of  Limbourg,  and  the  towns  of  Lummen,  Bilsen, 
and  Lanaeken  are  partially  destroyed.  Antwerp  held 
out  for  two  months,  and  all  about  its  outer  lines  of 
fortifications  there  was  blood  and  fire,  numerous  vil- 
lages were  sacked  and  burned,  and  the  whole  town  of 
Termonde  was  destroyed.  During  the  battles  of  Sep- 
tember the  village  of  Boortmeerbeek,  near  Malines,  oc- 
cupied by  the  Germans,  was  retaken  by  the  Belgians, 
and  when  the  Germans  entered  it  again  they  burned 
forty  houses.  Three  times  occupied  by  the  Belgians  and 
retaken  by  the  Germans,  Boortmeerbeek  was  three  times 

231 


BELGIUM 

punished  in  the  same  way.  That  is  to  say,  everywhere 
the  German  army  met  with  a  defeat  it  turned  on  the 
civil  population  and  punished  it,  wreaking  a  cowardly 
vengeance  on  helpless  and  unoffending  civilians.  This 
happened  so  many  times  and  so  precisely  in  the  same 
way  that  its  significance  can  not  be  avoided. 

But  there  is  a  striking  corollary  to  all  this.  In  all 
those  regions  where  the  Germans  could  pass  without 
resistance  from  the  Belgian  or  French  or  English  troops 
there  were  no  massacres  and  no  incendiarism  in  the 
grand  style;  there  were  many  isolated  cases  of  indi- 
vidual outrage  and  atrocity,  of  course,  but  no  syste- 
matically organized  annihilation  of  cities,  no  massacre  of 
populations,  as  at  Louvain,  Dinant,  Termonde,  Aer- 
schot,  Tamines,  Vise.  Between  Brussels  and  Mons,  in 
the  northern  part  of  the  Ardennes,  in  the  north  of  Lim- 
bourg,  in  East  Flanders,  the  German  army  passed  in 
force,  but  there  was  no  resistance  there  on  the  part  of 
regular  troops,  no  check  to  the  ambitious  plan;  and 
there  was  no  Sclirecklichkeit. 

If,  as  the  claim  is,  the  whole  civil  population  of  Bel- 
gium was  organized  for  a  Volkskrieg,  the  francs-tireurs 
woidd  have  been  found  there  as  well.  From  all  that  one 
can  gather,  the  francs-tireurs  existed  only  in  the  over- 
wrought imagination  of  the  German  soldiers,  and  one  is 
led  irresistibly  to  the  conclusion  that,  thus  stung  by  little 
defeats  and  exasperated  by  the  checks  which  their  plans 
had  sustained,  the  officers  either  ordered  or  permitted 
these  atrocities  on  the  civil  population. 

Almost  as  much  has  been  said  of  German  discipline  as 
of  German  organization.  There  is  of  course,  much  of 
both  in  Germany,  but  the  discipline  is  mostly  of  the 
military  kind;  there  seems  to  be  little  self-discipline — 

232 


THE  GERMAN  STATE 

there  are  no  sports  in  Germany  and  the  sense  of  fair 
play  is  not  developed;  the  idea  of  "playing  the  game" 
does  not  exist.  It  is  said  that  German  schoolboys  see 
nothing  out  of  the  way  in  snitching,  in  informing,  and 
are  encouraged  to  do  so. 

And  even  the  higher  officers  so  easily  fly  into  a  rage — 
like  the  General  in  Brussels  flinging  his  kepi  and  gloves 
on  the  floor  when  suddenly  he  became  furious  with  the 
Burgomaster.  .  .  .  The  German  language,  so  wonder- 
fully rich,  has  a  word  for  it — Wiltherich. 

They  used  to  tell  a  story  in  Brussels  of  a  sentinel  at 
the  old  Ministry  for  Foreign  Afl'airs  in  the  Rue  de  la 
Loi  who,  halting  some  one,  was  instantly  inundated  by  a 
flood  of  such  shocking  German  oaths  that  he  hastily 
saluted  and  allowed  the  man  to  pass. 

"Why  did  you  let  him  pass,  Duminkopf?"  demanded 
a  sergeant,  rushing  up. 

"I  thought  from  the  way  he  spoke  he  was  an  officer," 
replied  the  sentinel. 

They  have  a  word,  too,  for  the  state  of  wild  and 
beastly  rage  into  which  the  Wiltherich  so  easily  flies: 
Jdhzorn.  ...  It  may  have  been  Schrecklichkeit,  or  it 
may  have  been  Jdhzorn;  perhaps  it  was  both. 

There  should  be  some  word,  however,  for  the  worst 
deed  of  all,  that  which  followed  this.  For  all  those  de- 
liberately organized  massacres  of  civilians,  those  wanton 
murders  and  outrages,  the  violation  of  women,  the  kill- 
ing of  children,  the  destruction,  the  burning,  the  looting 
and  pillage,  until  whole  towns  were  annihilated,  as 
Carthage  and  Pompeii  and  Herculaneum  were  annihi- 
lated, and  their  people  either  massacred  or  sent  forth 
to  wander  on  the  face  of  the  earth — these  were  not  the 
worst.    It  was  not  the  worst  even  that  after  having  re- 

233 


BELGIUM     # 

pelled  the  dishonourable  advances  of  Germany,  Belgium 
should  be  violated  by  force,  and  that  all  these  outrages 
should  have  been  committed  to  punish  her  for  her  virtue. 
The  worst  is,  that  after  this,  the  assailant  should  have 
tried  to  justify  the  deed  by  trying  to  sully  the  reputa- 
tion of  the  victim.  There  is  no  word  for  that — in  Eng- 
lish, at  any  rate. 


XXXV 

VON  DER  GOLTZ  PASHA 

August,  that  terrible  August,  passed  away  in  the 
flood  of  its  beautiful  sunshine  and  its  days  of  blue  and 
gold  gradually  merged  into  the  silvery  light  of  Septem- 
ber. It  seemed  like  mockery  to  the  heavy  hearts  in  Bel- 
gium; the  customary  rains  would  have  been  more  in 
harmony  with  the  general  spirit.  The  Belgians,  proud 
as  they  were  of  the  resistance  of  their  army,  which  had 
fallen  back  within  the  fortifications  of  Antwerp,  were 
depressed  and  humiliated  by  the  daily  spectacle  of  Ger- 
man troops  in  their  city,  of  German  proclamations  on 
their  walls.  The  soldiers  were  everywhere,  trudging  by 
in  those  uncouth,  heavy  boots  into  which  their  trousers 
were  so  clumsily  thrust.  Huge  motors  would  sweep  by 
flying  the  imperial  standard,  their  siren  sounding  that 
call  to  which  Brussels  wit  soon  set  mocking,  ribald 
words : 


E23^B 


-#— 


t=:3 


nous  som'  fi  •  obu 


There  were  processions  of  great  auto-busses  heavily 
loaded  with  baggage — busses  that  but  a  month  before 
had  been  bowling  up  and  down  Unter  den  Linden.  The 
hotels  were  turned  over  to  German  officers ;  in  the  dining 
room  of  the  Palace  Hotel  they  were  eating  and  drinking 
every  evening.  The  army  was  evidently  moving  up  to 
the  siege  of  Antwerp.    We  heard  of  a  wonderful  new 

235 


BELGIUM 

cannon;  Poussette  had  seen  it  down  at  Namur — a  siege 
gun,  with  two  powerful  motors  to  draw  it,  so  enormous 
that  it  required  a  base  of  reinforced  concrete  on  which 
to  mount  it.  Poussette  said  it  would  make  the  defenses 
of  Antwerp  wholly  useless.  He  told  us  about  it  one  af- 
ternoon there  in  the  hallway  of  the  Legation,  and,  wish- 
ing to  give  some  idea  of  the  monster's  length,  he  glanced 
down  the  hall  to  the  other  end  and  then  on  out  into  the 
sunlit  courtyard.  The  glass  door  had  the  effect  of  ar- 
resting his  measuring  gaze. 

"Would  you  like  to  have  the  door  opened?"    I  asked. 

It  was  the  first  account  we  had  of  the  "Glorioso,"  the 
"Big  Bertha,"  the  famous  Quarante  Deux.  Some 
claimed  to  have  seen  such  monsters  going  down  the 
boulevards  manned  by  soldiers  in  strange  uniforms  and 
curious  caps,  but  they  may  have  been  the  guns  borrowed 
from  the  Austrians. 

There  were  long  trains  of  army  wagons,  like  our  old 
prairie  schooners,  methodically  aligned  in  the  order  of 
their  serial  numbers,  lurching  along  the  boulevards 
where  but  a  few  weeks  before  there  had  been  such  a 
gay  parade  of  wealth  and  fashion.  In  the  evening  we 
would  often  hear  a  noise  like  rain  sweeping  nearer  and 
nearer,  gradually  identifying  itself  as  the  drumming  of 
heavy  iron  shod  boots  on  the  stone  paving  of  the  Rue 
Belliard ;  we  would  hurry  to  the  balcony,  and  there  in  the 
gloom  would  be  those  grey  soldiers,  bowed  wearily  un- 
der their  knapsacks,  looking  like  die  Nihelungen,  hun- 
dreds of  them,  marching  four  abreast,  in  the  darkness, 
on  their  sad  mission.  And  now  and  then  in  the  morning 
we  would  be  awakened  by  the  same  sound,  rising  into  a 
crescendo  of  thunder,  and  they  would  be  marching  by, 
pouring  from  the  depths  of  their  rude  throats  that  same 

236 


VON  DER  GOLTZ  PASHA 

"Heil  Dir  im  Siegeskranzf  We  awakened  always  with 
that  same  sensation;  in  the  end  it  grew  almost  intoler- 
able. As  in  happier  times  one  would  open  one's  eyes 
and,  after  that  swift  ineffable  moment  before  conscious- 
ness fully  returns,  ask  one's  self,  "What  is  that  pleasant 
thing  that  happened  to  me  yesterday?" — some  bit  of 
good  fortune,  some  journey  planned,  some  fine  ambi- 
tious project  about  to  be  realized,  perhaps  some  charm- 
ing letter  from  a  friend;  now  one  asked  one's  self, 
"What  awful  thing  has  occurred?"  Ah,  yes,  the  war." 
Those  grey  hordes  pouring  down  out  of  the  northern 
plains  to  make  life  hideous,  to  wreck  the  world!  And 
just  at  a  time  when  somehow  as  never  before  mankind 
seemed  to  be  filled  with  good  will,  when  vast  ameliora- 
tions of  the  social  scheme  seemed  possible,  when  the  cyn- 
icism and  pessimism  and  bitterness  that  had  been  left  as 
the  heritage  of  past  wars  had  disappeared,  and  on  the 
earth  there  was  a  new  generation  that  knew  not  war, 
when  it  seemed  at  last  that  life  in  all  its  glory  and  beauty 
was  about  to  become  possible  for  vast  numbers  of  people 
— then,  this  hideous  thing!  And  one  arose  wearily  to 
face  horrid  uncertainties,  to  take  up  a  heavy  burden. 

Over  and  over  Belgians  would  say  to  me,  "We  are 
too  happy  in  our  little  country."  And  then  there  would 
come  a  thought  that  brought  its  pang  of  reproach;  we, 
after  all,  could  not  fully  realise  what  it  meant  to  those 
whose  country  had  been  so  shamelessly  invaded.  De 
Leval,  usually  so  cheerful,  so  full  of  spirit,  would  go 
about  his  task  very  quietly  and  very  much  depressed; 
and  one  day  little  Hermancito,  thinking  of  his  own 
poor  distracted  Mexico,  said  to  me,  "You  can  turn 
your  eyes  toward  the  great  nation  where  there  is  peace." 

237 


BELGIUM 

Ah,  yes!  "Romanus  civis  sum!  But  it  seemed  sel- 
fish. .  .  . 

Villalobar  was  insisting  that  the  telephone  service  be 
restored,  but  I  did  not  know  why  it  should  be;  it  was 
a  relief  to  be  without  that  supreme  nuisance,  whose  dis- 
advantages so  far  outweigh  its  merits  that  it  should 
never  be  restored  in  this  world  once  it  could  be  done 
away  with.  We  were  without  news  except  the  state- 
ments posted  now  and  then  on  the  walls  by  the  military 
authorities,  and  about  these  the  Belgians  would  gather, 
and  after  reading  them,  turn  away  with  sneering  in- 
credulity. We  knew  that  the  Germans  were  marching 
on  Paris  and  we  expected  each  morning  to  hear  that  they 
had  got  there.  There  were  reports  that  Charleroi  had 
been  passed  on  the  way  south;  the  guns  could  be  heard 
no  longer  in  the  hanlieue  of  the  city.  The  Uhlans — a 
word  that  connoted  all  fearful,  shuddering  things — were 
said  to  be  within  forty  kilometres  of  Paris.  There  were 
always  rumours  of  coming  relief.    One  evening  came  the 

Countess   S reporting  a  large  English  afmy  at 

Vilvorde,  which,  she  said,  would  be  in  Brussels  in  the 
morning;  within  three  days  the  reported  English  army 
had  swelled  to  100,000  and  had  advanced  to  Laeken,  in 
the  northern  suburbs  of  Brussels.  Battles  were  already 
in  progress  in  the  plains  west  of  the  city;  they  could 
be  seen  from  the  Palais  de  Justice!  A  lawyer  of  my 
acquaintance  came  breathlessly  to  the  Legation  to  say 
that  he  had  seen  a  cavalry  charge  himself  from  the  ramp 
of  the  great  structure;  he  said  if  we  hurried  we  might 
see  it.  Out  then  we  rushed  and  gazed  far  over  those 
plains  toward  the  west,  in  the  warm,  glittering  Septem- 
ber haze ;  but  we  saw  no  cavalry  charge,  no  battle — ^noth- 
ing.   I  asked  the  agent  de  police  standing  there  gloomily 

238 


VON  DER  GOLTZ  PASHA 

in  his  kepi  and  cape ;  he  had  seen  nothing.  I  asked  him 
why  the  crowd  assembled  there  every  day. 

"II  ny  a  ahsolument  rien  a  voir.  Monsieur  le  Minis- 
tre"  he  said  in  regret,  "tous  les  Bruxellois  restent  chez 
etuv  en  temps  de  paix  sans  jamais  regarder  le  beau 
panorama,  mais  depuis  le  guerre  la  rampe  de  la  terrace 
est  tou  jours  occupee  d'une  foule  enorme." 

Though  now  and  then  we  did  hear,  after  all,  some 
good  news,  as  on  that  evening  when,  driving  home  at 
dinner-time  along  the  Rue  de  la  Loi — its  long  hne  of 
lamps  already  lighted,  stretching  away  and  dipping  to 
rise  again  to  the  sky  that  was  brilliant  with  a  wonderful 
sunset — I  had  a  telegram  from  our  Consul  at  Aix-la- 
Chapelle  saying  that  McCutcheon,  Cobb,  Bennet,  and 
Lewis  were  there.  So  they  were  safe  after  all,  and  we 
were  all  relieved. 

Then  we  began  to  note  a  new  phenomenon — new,  at 
least,  in  Brussels — women  begging  in  the  street. 
Hunger,  another  of  war's  companions,  had  come  to  town. 
I  had  a  visit  of  a  group  of  citizens  asking  me  to  have 
food  imported  from  England.  But  how  was  I  or  any 
one  to  import  it?  Burgomaster  Max  asked  Villalobar 
and  me  to  come  to  see  him,  if  we  went.  He  wished  us 
to  be  patrons  of  a  relief  committee  that  was  being 
organized  to  provide  food  for  the  poor  of  the  city;  the 
situation  was  desperate.  We  agreed  to  act  as  patrons  of 
the  committee  of  distinguished  Belgian  citizens,  at  the 
head  of  which  was  M.  Ernest  Solvay,  the  kindly  elderly 
Belgian  millionaire  who  has  made  an  immense  fortune 
by  the  "Solvay  Process"  which  he  invented  for  the  pro- 
duction of  soda.  He- had  devoted  his  fortune  in  great 
measure  to  the  poor,  had  endowed  institutions ;  the  popu- 
lar school  in  the  Pare  Leopold  bore  his  name.    He  was 

239 


BELGIUM 

a  modest  little  man  of  simple  manner  and  attire,  with 
a  kindly  grey  bearded  face,  and  blue  eyes  that  were  filled 
with  sympathy  and  pity.  He  was  at  the  head  of  the 
committee  that  met  that  first  morning  in  September 
there  in  the  Burgomaster's  cabinet  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville ; 
he  and  other  wealthy  men  had  given  liberally  and  were 
to  provide  food  for  the  poor  of  the  city.  Villalobar  and 
I  were  there  in  our  capacity  as  patrons,  and  another 
affiche  was  soon  posted  on  the  walls  of  Brussels  announc- 
ing this  new  charity — or  this  new  justice,  or  attempt  at 
justice. 

We  did  not  know  then,  Villalobar  and  I,  just  what  it 
was  all  so  soon  to  lead  to;  we  gave  our  names,  little 
dreaming  what  tremendous  draughts  it  was  to  make  on 
our  sympathies  and  on  all  that  we  had  of  tact  and  dip- 
lomacy, nor  how  it  was  to  weld  our  own  friendship.  We 
talked  of  other  things,  since  the  future,  fortunately,  is 
ever  closed;  of  that  old  Spain,  of  which  he  was  such  a 
typical  representative;  of  that  new  America,  where  he 
had  spent  his  youth,  and  of  the  strange  romantic  min- 
gling of  their  destinies — an  epic  beyond  the  reach  of 
human  imagination.  Under  the  proud  exterior  he  had  a 
sensitive  heart;  he  was  full  of  expedients,  of  resources 
unlimited,  and  he  was  wholly  without  fear.  And  what 
a  manner  he  had  with  the  Germans,  who  know  no  equals, 
only  superiors  or  inferiors!  I  can  say  of  this  good 
friend — it  is  a  word  that  I  am  too  old  to  use  lightly — 
as  Madame  de  Sevigne  said  of  Montaigne :  "Quel  voisin 
de  campagne  il  aurait  fait!" 

He  had  served  not  only  at  Washington — once  as 
Minister — but  at  London  and  at  -Paris,  and  out  of  his 
long  experience  he  could  recount  with  a  touch  of  droll 
humour,  the  most  charming  anecdotes  and  the  most  in- 

240 


VON  DER  GOLTZ  PASHA 

teresting  personal  reminiscences.  He  had  been  Minister 
to  Portugal,  was  there  during  the  revolution. 

General  von  Liittwitz  had  told  us  one  afternoon,  Vil- 
lalobar  and  me,  that  a  new  Governor  General  was  com- 
ing, some  famous  victorious  Pasha  from  Turkey;  he 
would  install  a  civil  government  and  show  Belgians  how 
to  govern.  A  civil  government !  The  Germans  were  to 
have  passed  through  Brussels  in  three  days;  and  they 
had  been  there  for  three  weeks,  gradually  spreading  out 
over  all  the  Ministries  and  very  much  at  home.  And 
now  they  were  going  to  install  a  civil  administration.  It 
had  a  somewhat  too  permanent  sound ! 

Brussels  was  perturbed,  for  the  coming  of  a  Governor 
and  the  manner  of  it  might  have  its  effect  on  the  fate  of 
Belgium.  There  was  a  word  on  everybody's  lips  that 
no  one  dared  to  pronounce ;  did  it  mean — did  it  mean — 
annexation? 

The  victorious  Pasha  duly  arrived,  to  be  followed 
later  by  whole  regiments  of  functionaries.  It  was  the 
old  Field-Marshal  Baron  von  der  Goltz.  I  had  word 
that  the  new  Governor  General  would  pay  me  a  formal 
call  on  Thursday,  the  third,  in  the  afternoon.  So,  then, 
on  that  day,  promptly  at  four.  His  Excellency  Field 
Marshal  Baron  von  der  Goltz  Pasha,  in  blue  Bis- 
marckian  uniform  and  decorations,  a  little  squat  black 
helmet,  wearing  an  enormous  sword,  arrived  with  his 
staff  in  two  big  grey  automobiles,  amid  great  excite- 
ment in  the  Rue  de  Treves.  The  Pasha,  a  big  man  and 
old,  had  a  heavy,  mottled,  much  scarred  face,  and  wore 
large,  round,  gleaming  spectacles  that  gave  him  a  look 
almost  jovial.  He  expressed  himself  in  correct  French, 
and  thanked  me  for  my  work  in  charge  of  the  German 
Legation.     He  said  something  of  his  experiences  in 

241 


BELGIUM 

Turkey,  remained  but  a  few  minutes,  smiled,  bowed,  and 
was  gone. 

It  was  on  that  occasion  that  I  met  a  man  with  whom 
I  was  to  have  much  to  do  for  the  next  two  and  a  half 
years.  He  was  a  remarkably  handsome  man  in  his 
smart  uniform  of  bluish-grey  with  white  facings,  some- 
thing less  than  six  feet  in  height  and  of  elegant  form — a 
man  to  make  a  figure  anywhere.  His  neatly  trimmed 
black  hair,  his  closely  cropped  moustache,  the  evidence 
of  a  careful,  though  by  no  means  a  foppish  toilet — in 
short  his  general  well-groomed  air,  his  easy  carriage  and 
manner — ^marked  him  out  among  all  the  others,  indeed 
among  all  the  officers  who  came  to  Brussels,  as  a  man 
of  the  world.  There  was  something  of  the  air  of  youth 
about  him,  though  he  must  then  have  been  verging  on 
fifty.  The  expression  of  his  vigilant,  searching  blue 
eyes,  in  which,  as  one  came  to  know  him,  one  recognized 
his  moods,  was  now  and  then  of  an  almost  smiling  in- 
genuousness. Indeed  his  expression  was  often  smiling, 
and  the  ruddy  colour  came  and  went  in  his  smooth  cheeks 
with  his  smile,  though  it  was  never  the  smile  of  joviality. 
There  were  the  reserves  of  a  man  who  sought  to  be 
polite,  correct,  even  punctilious,  but  perhaps  on  his 
guard,  and  wary  of  a  world  in  which  the  ambitious  have 
to  keep  their  eyes,  however  blue  and  smiling,  always 
open.  Such,  in  a  way,  was  the  Baron  von  der  Lancken- 
Wakenitz,  one  of  the  ablest  of  the  young  men  in  German 
diplomacy.  He  owned  landed  estates  in  Silesia,  and  was 
already  a  Minister  Plenipotentiary,  accredited  to  one  of 
the  German  States — Saxony,  I  think.  He  could  speak 
I  know  not  how  many  languages  beside  his  own,  though 
he  did  not  like  to  speak  English,  and  he  always  con- 
versed in  that  French  which  he  had  so  perfectly  mas- 

24*2 


VON  DER  GOLTZ  PASHA 

tered  during  his  ten  years  service  as  Counselor  in  the 
German  Embassy  at  Paris.  He  had  served  at  Rome 
and  Madrid,  and  had  come  to  Brussels  to  occupy  an 
important  post  in  the  Government  of  Occupation  that 
was  about  to  be  established.  We  exchanged  but  a  few 
words  that  day,  for  the  call  was  brief,  but  we  were  des- 
tined during  the  succeeding  two  and  a  half  years  to  be- 
come better  acquainted  and  to  exchange  many  words, 
the  occasional  asperity  of  which  not  all  the  delicate 
nuances  of  the  French  language  could  soften  or  shade 
away. 

The  affiche  next  morning  bore  the  declaration  by 
which  the  Field-Marshal  proclaimed  his  accession  to  the 
seat  of  power  in  the  little  kingdom.  The  people  gath- 
ered about  in  sorrowful  silent  groups,  reading  the  an- 
nouncement of  their  fate.  Many  of  them  with  scraps  of 
paper  and  bits  of  lead-pencils  almost  surreptitiously 
copied  it  down.  The  proclamation  stated  that  the  Ger- 
man armies  were  advancing  victoriously  in  France,  and 
then  proceeded  to  threaten  the  population  with  dire  con- 
sequences if  any  act  inimical  to  the  German  cause  were 
committed.  And  then  there  was  the  declaration  of  a 
new  and  amazing  doctrine — new  in  our  times,  at  least, 
and  in  the  western  world:  namely,  that  the  innocent 
should  be  punished  as  well  as  the  guilty ! 

^'C^est  la  dure  necessite  de  la  guerre  que  les  punitions 
d'actes  hostiles  frappent  en  dehors  des  coupahles  aussi 
des  innocents/^  ^ 

The  sinister  threat  needed  no  commentary  after  Lou- 
vain,  Dinant,  Aerschot,  and  a  hundred  other  towns  to 

•^  It  is  the  stern  necessity  of  war  that  the  punishment  for  hos- 
tile acts  fall  not  only  on  the  guilty^  but  on  the  innocent  as  well. 

243 


BELGIUM 

the  east,  still  smoking  at  that  very  moment  under  their 
ruins.  The  people  read  it  in  silence  but  took  what  com- 
fort they  could  in  another  phrase : 

"Citoyens  Beiges:  Je  ne  demande  a  personne  de  re- 
nter ses  sentiments  patriotiques/^  ^ 

Nor  did  they  miss  the  implications  of  another  feature 
— one  little  word  and  that  an  insignificant  preposition, 
suddenly  swollen  with  an  immense  importance,  preg- 
nant with  a  deep  meaning.  That  was  the  preposition 
"in" — Governor-General  in  Belgium,  then,  and  not 
Governor-General  of  Belgium!  Men  stood  perhaps 
more  erect,  they  were  not  required  to  renounce  any 
of  their  patriotic  sentiments,  and  the  land  was  not  an- 
nexed ! 

But  it  would  not  have  been  Brussels  had  not  the  peo- 
ple had  their  fun  out  of  it ;  with  that  old  and  unconquer- 
able Belgian  sense  of  humour,  that  remarkable  resilience 
of  spirit  which  is  innate  in  the  Belgian  character.  Some- 
where, on  a  wall  of  the  lower  town,  the  affiche  had  been 
put  up  so  high  that  it  could  not  be  read  by  the  passers- 
by,  and  a  buxom  woman  of  the  people,  a  ''bonne  Bruocel- 
loise"  with  the  naivete  that  is  also  a  part  of  the  Brussels 
nature,  brought  from  her  shop  a  ladder  and  mounted 
upon  it  to  read  it  for  the  benefit  of  the  crowd.  But  her 
voice  was  not  strong  enough — and  a  man,  some  droll 
wag — climbed  up  in  her  stead  and  read  the  proclamation 
with  running  comment  on  its  statements  and  then  held 
out  his  hands  in  benediction,  and  said : 

"Et  maintenant,  mes  enfants,  je  vous  henis;  avec  ca 
(waving  a  hand  at  the  proclamation)  et  six  cents  vous 

^  Citizens  of  Belgium :  I  ask  no  one  to  renounce  his  patriotic  sen- 
timents. 

244 


VON  DER  GOLTZ  PASHA 

aurez  un  verve  de  hiere  dans  tons  les  cabarets  de  Brux- 
ellesr « 

It  was  as  much  respect  as  the  Germans  ever  inspired 
in  Belgium. 

^  And  now,  my  children,  I  bless  you ;  with  that  and  three  cents 
you  can  get  a  glass  of  beer  in  any  saloon  in  Brussels.  (A  cent 
at  Brussels  is  two  centimes.) 

Von  der  Goltz's  proclamation  in  full  was  as  follows: 

PROCLAMATION 

Sa  Majeste  I'Empereur  d'Allemagne,  apres  I'occupation  de  la 
plus  grande  partie  du  territoire  beige,  a  daigne  me  nommer  gouver- 
neur  general  en  Belgique.  J'ai  etabli  le  siege  du  gouverne- 
ment  general  a  Bruxelles  (Ministere  des  Sciences  et  des  Arts,  rue 
de  la  Loi). 

Par  ordre  de  Sa  Majeste,  une  administration  civile  a  ete  installee 
aupres  du  gouvernement  general  (Ministere  de  la  Guerre,  rue  de 
Louvain).  Son  Excellence  Monsieur  von  Sandt  a  ete  a^Dpele  aux 
fonctions  de  chef  de  cette  administration. 

Les  armees  allemandes  s'avancent  victorieusement  en  France.  Ma 
tache  sera  de  conserver  la  tranquillite  et  I'ordre  public  en  territoire 
beige. 

Tout  acte  hostile  des  habitants  centre  les  militaires  allemands, 
toute  tentative  de  troubler  leurs  communications  avec  I'Allemagne, 
de  gener  ou  de  couper  les  services  des  chemins  de  fer,  du  telegraphe 
et  du  telephone,  seront  punis  tres  severement.  Toute  resistance  ou 
revoke  contre  I'administration  allemande  sera  reprimee  sans  par- 
don. 

C'est  la  dure  necessite  de  la  guerre  que  les  punitions  d'actes  hos- 
tiles  frappent,  en  dehors  des  coupables,  aussi  des  innocents.  Le 
devoir  s'impose  d'autant  plus  a  tous  les  citoyens  raisonnables  d'ex- 
ercer  une  pression  sur  les  elements  turbulents  en  vue  de  les  retenir 
de  toute  action  dirigee  contre  I'ordre  public.  Les  citoyens  beiges 
desirant  vaquer  paisiblement  a  leurs  occupations  n'ont  rien  a  crain- 
dre  de  la  part  des  troupes  ou  des  autorites  allemandes.  Autant  que 
faire  se  pourra,  le  commerce  devra  etre  repris,  les  usines  devront 
recommencer  a  travailler,  les  moissons  etre  rentrees. 

245 


BELGIUM 

Citoyens  Beiges, 
Je  ne  demande  a  personne  de  renier  ses  sentiments  patriotiques, 
mais  j 'attends  de  vous  tous  une  soumission  raisonnable  et  une  obeis- 
sance  absolue  vis-a-vis  des  ordres  du  gouvernement  general.  Je 
vous  invite  a  lui  montrer  de  la  confiance  et  a  lui  preter  votre  con- 
cours.  J'adresse  cette  invitation  specialement  aux  fonctionnaires 
de  I'Etat  et  des  communes  qui  sont  restes  a  leurs  postes.  Plus  vous 
donnerez  suite  a  cet  appel,  plus  vous  servirez  votre  patrie. 
Fait  a  Bruxelles,  le  2  septembre,  1914. 

Le  gouverneur  general. 
Baron  von  der  Goltz, 

Feldmarechal. 


XXXVI 

THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  MARNE 

Afflches,  indeed,  just  then  and  afterwards,  played  as 
large  a  part  in  the  life  of  Brussels  as  had  newspapers 
before  the  war.  They  might  not  always  provide  news 
but  they  could  provide  sensation,  and,  if  written  by  the 
proper  hand,  send  a  thrill  through  the  community.  On 
the  morning  of  the  last  day  of  August  the  crowds  that, 
with  necks  craned  forward  and  eyes  peering,  pressed 
eagerly  up  to  the  walls  where  the  afflches  were  posted, 
were  thrilled  by  one  of  the  most  stupendous  sensations 
the  city  had  ever  known;  for  there  was  a  white  poster, 
with  black  characters,  its  text  vibrating  with  the  passion 
of  the  man  who  had  written  it.  It  was  the  Burgomaster 
himself,  who,  with  the  consecrated  phrase  the  French 
use  when  they  wish  to  give  the  effect  of  the  short  and 
ugly  word  they  are  too  polite  to  use,  had  pricked  the 
German  pride: 

^  ViLLE    DE     BrUXELLES 

Le  gouverneur  allemand  de  la  ville  de  Liege,  lieutenant-general 
von  Kolewe,  a  fait  afficher  hier  I'avis  suivant: 

" Aux  habitants  de  la  ville  de  Liege 

"Le  bourgmestre  de  Bruxelles  a  fait  savoir  au  commandant  alle- 
mand que  le  gouvernement  fran9ais  a  declare  au  gouvernement  beige 
I'impossibilite  de  I'assister  offensivement  en  aucune  maniere,  vu  qu'il 
se  trouve  lui-meme  force  a  la  defensive." 

J'oppose  a  cette  affirmation  le  dementi  le  plus  formel. 

Le  Bourgmestre,  Adolphe  Max. 

Bruxelles,  le  30  aout,  1914. 

■^  City  of   Brussels 
The  German  Governor  of  the  City  of  Liege,  Lieutenant-General 
von  Kolewe,  has  caused  to  be  published  the  following  notice: 

247 


•       BELGIUM 

It  was  the  very  thing  to  catch  the  crowd;  Brussels 
was  delighted,  and  celebrated  its  dashing  and  daring 
burgomaster.  Then,  a  few  hours  later,  there  was  an- 
other affiche  on  the  walls. 

^  Avis  Important 

II  est  strictement  defendu,  aussi  a  la  municipalite  de  la  ville,  de 
publier  des  affiches  sans  avoir  re9U  ma  permission  speciale. 
Bruxelles,  31  aout,  1914. 
Le  gouverneur  militaire.  Baron  von  Luttwitz,  General-major. 

The  town  was  swept  by  laughter;  the  Burgomaster, 
already  popular,  became  an  idol. 

Brussels  was  to  spend  much  of  its  time  thenceforth 
in  reading  the  affiches  on  its  walls,  even  if  it  did  make 
it  a  point  of  patriotic  honour  not  to  believe  a  word  it 
read  when  the  affiches  were  German.    For  to  the  procla- 

"To  the  inhabitants  of  the  City  of  Liege 
"The  Burgomaster  of  Brussels  has  informed  the  German  Com- 
mander that  the  French  Government  has  notified  the  Belgian  Gov- 
ernment of  the  impossibility  of  assisting  it  offensively  in  any  man- 
ner in  view  of  the  fact  that  it  finds  itself  compelled  to  take  the 
defensive." 

To  this  affirmation  I  oppose  the  most  formal  denial. 

The   Burgomaster, 
Adolphe   Max. 
Brussels,  30th  August,  1914. 

^  Important  Notice 
It  is  strictly  forbidden,  also  to  the  municipality  of  the  city,  to 
publish  notices  without  having  received  my  special  permission. 

The  Military  Governor,  Baron  von  Lijttwitz, 

Major  General. 
Brussels,  31st  August,  1914. 

248 


THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  MARNE 

mations  and  decrees  and  orders  and  ''avis''  that  grew 
more  and  more  numerous  as  time  went  on,  there  were 
added,  ''Nouvelles  publiees  par  le  Gouvernement  Alle- 
mand" — great  white  posters  on  all  the  walls  in  three 
languages,  German,  Flemish,  and  French.  JLes  Nou- 
velles  publiees  par  le  Gouvernement  AUematid  were 
edited  by  a  rather  cunning  hand  over  there  in  the 
ministeres,  where  the  vast  organization,  with  clumsy 
thoroughness  was  getting  itself  installed,  but  the  task 
could  not  have  been  more  subtly  performed  if  Machia- 
velli  himself  had  been  in  charge  and  wished  to  poison 
the  wells  of  public  information.  I  do  not  know  that  the 
statements  were  deliberately  false;  they  may  have  told 
nothing  but  the  truth,  but  they  did  not  tell  the  whole 
truth,  and  they  were  almost  artistically  contrived  to 
depress  and  discourage,  constituting  a  kind  of  diurnal 
dose  of  despair.  We  read  in  them  that  von  Kluck  was 
before  Paris,  and  we  waited  daily,  almost  hourly,  for 
the  announcement  of  the  fall  of  the  French  capital ;  we 
read  of  the  departure  of  the  Government  for  Bordeaux 
and  of  Gallieni's  famous  phrase:  ''Je  rempUrai  cette 
mission  jusquau  bout/' 

We  followed  in  imagination  from  day  to  day  the 
progress  toward  Paris  of  those  armies  we  had  seen 
sweep  through  Brussels — the  very  same,  no  doubt, 
which,  in  a  tragic  moment,  Sir  John  French's  scouts  saw 
looming  before  them  a  few  days  after.  The  very  mys- 
tery added  to  the  terror  of  the  thought,  the  very  uncer- 
tainty made  us  all  the  more  certain.  Every  day,  over  at 
the  Ministere  des  Affaires  Etrangeres,  General  von 
Liittwitz,  with  the  impersonal  calmness  of  the  fates 
themselves,  would  tell  me  of  the  progress  of  those  arm- 
ies, nearer  the  French  capital  by  so  many  kilometres 

249 


BELGIUM 

each  day — ^nearer  and  nearer  then,  day  by  day,  and  at 
last  one  afternoon  he  remarked  simply: 

"We  shall  enter  Paris  to-morrow." 

It  seemed  like  the  end  of  the  world — our  world,  the 
world  as  we  of  the  West  knew  it.  I  did  not  see  him  the 
next  day.  But  the  day  following  I  said,  in  a  manner  as 
casual  as  I  could  command: 

"I  presume  you  are  in  Paris  now.  .  .  ." 

"No,"  he  said.  "After  all,  you  see,  our  objective  is 
not  Paris.  Our  army  is  swinging  around,  making  an 
enveloping  movement,"  and  he  made  an  enveloping 
movement  himself  with  his  arm,  swinging  it  about  with 
an  inclusive  gesture  that  seemed  to  embrace  and  gather 
into  its  toils  the  whole  of  the  French  nation.  "We  must 
destroy  the  French  army." 

And  that,  at  the  time,  was  what  I  knew  of  the  battle 
of  the  Marne.  I  do  not  know  much  more  about  it  now ; 
I  do  not  at  all  understand  what  happened  there  south 
of  us  on  that  day.  I  mean,  some  day,  to  read  the  story, 
though  I  shall  probably  be  unable  to  understand  it,  mili- 
tary movements  being  for  me  a  profound  mystery. 
Once,  before  the  war,  down  at  Waterloo,  the  old  Eng- 
lish lance-sergeant  who  lectured  on  the  panorama  of  the 
battle  described  to  me  that  engagement,  not  then  dwin- 
dled into  the  skirmish  it  has  since  become.  He  was  in 
uniform,  with  waxed  moustaches,  and  an  odour  on  his 
breath  and  in  all  the  air  about,  that  was  of  the  essence 
of  all  the  alcohol  distilled  in  the  British  Isles  since  the 
Crimean  War;  he  had,  of  course,  a  little  swagger-stick, 
and  as  he  said,  poising  it  horizontally,  delicately,  before 
my  eyes: 

"Now  sir,  look  sharp,  sir.     This,  Napoleon's  left, 

250 


THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  MARNE 

Wellington's  right ;  this,  Napoleon's  right,  Wellington's 
left.    Do  you  follow  me,  sir?" 

I  nodded  with  the  inane  acquiescence  of  one  dazed 
under  instruction.  .  .  .  Half  an  hour  later  he  said, 
again  poising  the  swagger-stick  horizontally : 

"And  now,  sir,  I  shall  describe  to  you  the  Battle  of 
Gettysburg." 

But  for  once  I  was  firm. 

"Pardon  me,"  I  said.  "You  will  do  no  such  thing! 
I  spent  my  youth  hearing  of  that  battle  from  original 
sources."  And  I  gave  him  his  half  crown  and  went  out, 
past  the  catchpenny  booths  and  cheap  museums  with 
their  squalid  trinkets  and  trash  of  souvenirs,  into  which 
all  earthly  glory  soon  or  late  dwindles.  The  only  de- 
scription of  a  battle  that  I  could  ever  understand  is  that 
of  Tolstoy  in  "War  and  Peace,"  and  I  understand 
that  only  because  Tolstoy  makes  it  so  plain  that  the  mili- 
tary science  is  not  so  much  a  science  as  a  congeries  of 
human  fallibilities  and  spiteful  little  accidents.  If  it 
were  otherwise  the  Grermans  would  have  vindicated 
General  von  Liittwitz's  predictions,  and  not  have  left 
the  imperial  armies  to  the  ironic  hazard  of  all  those 
Paris  taxicabs,  of  which,  I  am  sure,  there  was  never 
the  slimmest  dossier  in  the  archives  of  the  French  Gen- 
eral Staff. 

We  heard  for  the  first  time,  too,  of  Hindenburg — a 
Colonel  General  then,  whatever  that  may  be.  No  news- 
papers were  published  in  Brussels,  for  the  editors  of  the 
Brussels  press  unanimously  declined  to  submit  to  Ger- 
man censorship  and  suspended  publication  for  the  dura- 
tion of  the  occupation.  No  newspapers  were  allowed  to 
enter  Belgium  unless  they  were  German,  but  as  one 
walked  along  the  streets  toward  evening,  furtive  fig- 

251 


BELGIUM 

ures  would  approach  and  whisper,  "Times,  Mon- 
sieur?" and  one  might  buy  a  copy  several  days  old  for 
ten  or  twelve  francs.^  Then  we  learned  that  these  sales- 
men were  being  shot  if  they  were  discovered;  so  we 
bought  their  contraband  papers  no  more,  not  caring  to 
be  associated  even  indirectly  with  such  tragedies.  When 
our  pouches  got  through  the  lines  the  newspapers  they 
brought  were  old,  and  nothing  so  quickly  evaporates, 
perhaps,  ^s  the  interest  of  a  newspaper,  which,  like  waf- 
fles, must  be  hot  from  the  irons  to  be  worth  while. 

Thus  more  and  more  we  turned  in  upon  ourselves 
and  our  own  little  affairs — little  that  is,  in  comparison 
with  the  larger  aff'airs  "outside,"  as  we  soon  came  to 
think  of  the  greater  world  beyond  those  grey  lines  that 
hemmed  us  in. 

"Nous  deviendrons  cretins/'  said  Villalobar  one  day, 
as  we  discussed  the  latest  little  problem;  it  may  have 
been  the  question  of  cards  and  calls.  It  was  delicate 
because  it  had  to  do  with  etiquette,  which  is  always  deli- 
cate. The  Governor-General,  it  had  been  stated,  would 
call  on  the  Marquis  at  a  certain  hour  but  he  did  not 
appear — was  suddenly  called  away  and  had  left  the  city. 
What  did  it  mean?  We  learned,  however,  from  Major 
von  Harwaerts,  who  was  an  excellent  sort ;  he  had  been 
military  Attache  at  Washington,  and  there,  in  Davig- 
non's  old  drawing-room,  where  stood  as  of  yore  the  sofas, 

^  Avis 

Je  rappelle  a  la  population  de  Bruxelles  et  des  faubourgs  qu'il  est 
strictement  defendu  de  vendre  ou  de  distribuer  des  journaux  qui 
ne  sont  pas  expressement  admis  par  le  gouverneur  militaire  alle- 
mand.  Les  contraventions  entrainent  I'arrestation  immediate  des 
vendeurs,  ainsi  que  des  poines  d'emprisonnement  prolonge. 

Le  gouverneur  militaire  allemand,  Baron  von  Luttwitz,  General. 

252 


THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  MARNE 

the  two  canapes  that  Madame  Davignon  had  so  clev- 
erly maintained  in  use ;  the  empty  tete-a-tete  waited,  the 
framed  photographs  of  the  King  and  of  the  little  Queen 
still  on  the  piano.  And  after  we  had  heard  about  Ger- 
man victories  and  Belgian  francs-tireurs  and  the  Eng- 
lish— the  Major  remarking  that  Germany  would  win  the 
war  because  "we  get  up  two  hours  earlier  than  the  Eng- 
lish and  have  no  week-ends" — it  fell  out  that  the  mystery 
about  the  Pasha's  sudden  departure  the  day  before  was 
to  be  solved  in  the  simplest  manner.  The  old  Field-Mar- 
shal had  dashed  off  to  observe,  as  a  spectator,  the  mili- 
tary operations  around  Antwerp ;  that  was  all ;  he  went 
to  battles  as  an  ofRce-boy  goes  to  baseball  games ;  he  was 
always  gazing  on  the  battle,  and  not  from  afar,  for  one 
day  he  was  wounded  slightly  in  the  cheek.  Thus  I  did 
not  get  his  call  returned  for  a  week,  and  even  then  I  did 
not  see  him. 

But  in  the  meantime  we  arranged  Villalobar's  affair. 
It  was  all  most  complicated.  The  Pasha  had  called  on 
me  because  I  had  had  charge  of  German  interests, 
which  he,  by  the  way,  to  my  relief,  had  formally  reas- 
sumed  when  he  called,  but  he  could  not,  it  seemed,  bring 
himself  to  make  the  first  call  on  the  other  diplomatists. 
And  so,  when  the  Marquis  and  the  Baron  von  der 
Lancken  met  at  my  house  one  morning  there  was  some 
delightful  fencing  between  the  two;  finally  Baron  von 
der  Lancken  said  that  the  Governor- General  would  like 
to  drop  in  at  my  house  the  following  afternoon  for  a 
cup  of  tea,  if  I  expected  to  be  at  home.  And  it  was 
simple  to  say  to  Villalobar: 

"Voulez-vous  me  faire  Vhonneur  de  venir  prendre  une 
fosse  de  the  demain  a  cinq  heures?'*         \ 

"Oui,  merci" — and  so  the  situation  was  adjusted. 

253 


BELGIUM 

It  was  like  that,  every  minute,  for  nearly  three  years. 

The  Pasha  duly  came  the  next  afternoon  at  five,  with 
von  der  Lancken  and  the  Count  Ortenbourg  and  an 
cdde^  and  Villalobar  came,  and  they  were  made  ac- 
quainted over  the  cup  of  tea  that  the  servants  served 
with,  I  felt,  a  somewhat  reluctant  grace ;  though  if  they 
had  not  served  those  few  cups  of  tea  there  might  not 
have  been  bread  for  seven  millions  of  their  countrymen, 
as  the  event  turned  out — such  big  things  so  often  de- 
pending on  such  little  ones. 

It  was  all  of  the  exquisite  delicacy  that  was  implicit 
in  the  situation,  for  Belgians  could  not  encounter  Ger- 
mans or  meet  them;  if  they  saw  them  in  the  streets 
they  passed  them  by  with  a  fine  stony  indifference,  as 
though  the  Germans  were  not,  or  as  though  they  had 
remained  in  the  Fatherland  where  they  belonged.  And 
at  the  very  moment  of  that  day  when  the  Pasha  was  in 
one  of  the  salons  there  was  a  Belgian  princess  in  an- 
other, much  troubled  about  her  son  in  the  Belgian  Army, 
just  then  severely  wounded;  she  desired  to  go  to  Ant- 
werp to  see  him. 

Indeed  some  one  in  trouble  was  always  waiting,  and 
the  desire  to  help  was  often  much  stronger  than  the 
power  that  was  being  so  exaggerated  by  the  silly  re- 
ports. The  story  had  already  developed  into  an  amaz- 
ing and  impossible  legend,  and  the  German  newspapers 
were  beginning  to  take  oiFense.  A  Cologne  newspa- 
per *  edited  by  some  one  who  was  able  to  maintain  his 

*  Article  from  the  Kolnische  Zeitung: 

"The  American  Minister  in  Belgium  must,  according  to  Belgian 
and  Dutch  ideas,  be  a  very  extraordinary  man ! 

"First,  when  the  Germans  came  to  Brussels,  he  is  said  to  have 

254 


THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  MARNE 

mind  at  the  boiling-point  of  rage  continuously  for  three 
years,  was  already  growling  ominously  about  my  aiding 
Belgians,  but  he  seemed  so  to  have  exhausted  himself 
by  his  daily  diatribes,  that  he  had  no  energy  left  for  even 
the  mildest  approbation  when  the  person  helped  hap- 
pened to  be  some  German. 

The  family  d'Arenberg,  for  instance,  was  having 
trouble  in  Belgium  during  those  days.  Like  so  many 
other  German  families,  the  devotion  of  the  d'Arenbergs 
to  the  "Vaterland"  was  not  sufficient  to  induce  them  to 
reside  there,  and  after  Germany  had  betrayed  Belgium 
the  Belgians  failed  in  the  respect  that  had  characterized 
their  hospitality  during  so  many  years.  The  d'Aren- 
berg castle,  indeed,  at  Marche-les-Dames,  had  been  de- 
stroyed by  Belgian  troops,  because,  it  seems,  one  of  the 
young  princes  had  a  wireless-telegraph  apparatus  on 
the  castle  roof,  and  the  d'Arenbergs  were  already  under 
suspicion  as  German  spies.  After  the  destruction  of 
Marche-les-Dames  the  old  Princess  Pauline  Marie  Jo- 
seph d'Arenberg  had  gone  to  another  of  the  family  prop- 
played  a  role  with  which  legally  he  had  no  concern,  as  if  he  was  a 
kind  of  superior  supervisor  of  the  German  war  tactics. 

"Now  he  appears  as  supervising  the  measures  that  have  to  be 
taken  by  the  German  soldiers  in  Louvain.  (See  De  Tijd  of  Sep- 
tember 4th.) 

"It  is  rendering  the  Minister  a  bad  service  in  crediting  him  with 
matters  that  do  not  concern  him,  and  it  is  rendering  a  bad  service 
to  the  Belgians  in  making  them  believe  that  the  Germans  are  com- 
pelled to  give  way,  because  this  feeling  from  the  Belgians  might 
make  them  resist  orders  and  prepare  trouble. 

"The  Burgomaster  of  Brussels  has  already  to  answer  several  of 
these  points,  and  the  Burgomaster  of  Louvain  is  likely  dealing 
unwisely  in  saying  that  from  now  there  will  be  no  more  incendiarism, 
no  thefts,  which  might  give  to  believe  that  the  Germans  have  ever 
allowed  such  things !" 

255 


BELGIUM 

erties  at  Malaise — not  inappropriately  named  under  the 
circumstances,  though  there  she  lived  quietly  and  in 
peace.  One  Sunday  afternoon  Villalobar  and  I  drove 
out  through  the  lovely  forest  with  its  green  and  gold 
lace-work  in  the  sunlit  glades,  through  Groenendael  and 
on  to  La  Hulpe,  beyond  which  Malaise  stood,  to  see 
her  and  render  her  what  aid  we  could.  There,  in  the 
modest  little  chateau,  hidden  away  among  the  trees,  the 
princess — a  tall,  white-haired,  soft-voiced  old  lady — re- 
ceived us.  We  sat  in  a  little  drawing-room  that  had 
Louis  XV  tapestry  and  splendid  carven  doors  and 
wainscoting  from  an  old  chateau  near  Namur.  llbe 
Princess  was  very  voluble  in  her  French,  the  language 
in  which  to  be  voluble  if  one  is  voluble  in  any,  sitting 
there  on  her  little  sofa  and  with  graceful  gestures  telling 
of  the  loss  of  her  artistic  treasures  and  of  the  destruction 
of  the  home  where  her  ancestors  '^ont  ferme  les  yeux." 
An  old  servitor — a  man  of  seventy,  I  should  say,  fat 
and  round  and  sleek,  with  a  smile  that  trembled  over  his 
face — came  in  at  her  ring  to  receive  an  order  about  our 
motor,  and  there  was  a  great  Groenendael  dog,  old,  like 
all  the  rest,  slipping  about  over  the  parquet  floor,  against 
which  his  claws  rattled;  he  would  sink  down  now  and 
again  and  scratch  himself  with  such  vigorous  movements 
that  the  whole  house  shook.  The  Princess  offered  us 
tea  and  wine,  and  we  talked  for  a  long  time,  and  then  she 
must  show  us  her  house,  filled  with  tapestries,  paintings 
and  bibelots  and,  in  a  vitrine  in  a  room  upstairs,  a  won- 
derful collection  of  fans  painted  by  Carlo  van  Loo,  just 
as  in  Dobson's  poem: 

This  is  the  Pompadour's  fan! 

But  where  is  the  Pompadour? 

256 


THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  MARNE 

Here  the  old  grande  dame  lived  with  her  treasures,  a 
pious  life,  for  there  were  yellow  ivory  crucifixes  every- 
where and  a  priest  in  a  It^lack  soutane  meditating  out  in 
the  garden. 

She  desired  me  to  ask  the  Germans  to  protect  what 
remained  of  Marche-les-Dames,  but  Villalobar  and  I 
told  her  to  write  to  the  Pasha.  She  was  afraid  to  come 
into  Brussels  herself,  so  she  took  down  his  address  and 
most  scrupulously  all  his  titles — or  all  of  his  title  that 
Villalobar,  who  is  as  competent  in  that  line  as  the  "Alma- 
nach  Gotha,"  could  give  her. 

Finally  we  got  away,  not  without  an  effort,  after  hav- 
ing said  adieu  three  times  and  kissing  her  hand.  As  we 
drove  away  she  stood  gravely  in  the  doorway,  the  old 
servitor  with  his  trembling  smile  and  the  great  dog 
guarding  her,  and  her  chaplain  in  his  long  black  soutane 
standing  there  solemnly  under  the  trees. 

Afar  though  nation  be  on  nation  hurled; 
^  And  life  with  toil  and  ancient  pain  depressed. 

Here  one  may  scarce  believe  the  whole  wide  world 
^  Is  not  at  peace,  and  all  man's  heart  at  rest. 


XXXVII 

NACH  PARIS 

But  all  man's  heart,  alas!  was  not  at  rest,  and  there 
was  no  escape  from  the  sights  and  scenes  and  incidents 
that  so  constantly  reminded  us  of  war.  There  were  sol- 
diers everywhere  and  it  was  not  long  before  there  were 
sailors  too,  or  at  least  marines,  marching  along  the 
boulevards  on  their  way,  as  everybody  supposed,  to  Ant- 
werp to  manoeuvre  the  heavy  Austrian  siege-guns  that 
were  being  moved  up.  Then  the  ambulances  began  to 
bear  wounded  into  the  city,  and  after  three  weeks  of 
idleness  the  railways  were  again  in  operation,  manned 
now  by  Germans  in  blue  uniforms,  and  when  the  trains 
that  jolted  over  the  crossing  at  the  Rue  Balliard  were 
not  bearing  wounded  in  our  direction  they  were  puiF- 
ing  and  straining  in  the  other  direction,  loaded  with  can- 
non to  wound  other  men  to  be  brought  back  on  the  re- 
turn trip.  Commanier  Gherardi,  of  our  Navy,  who 
was  just  then  Naval  Attache  at  Berlin,  was  in  Brussels 
on  the  sixth  of  September  with  other  Attaches,  on  his 
way  to  Maubeuge,  which  was  scheduled  to  fall  on  the  fol- 
lowing day,  and  their  trip  had  been  planned  so  that  they 
would  arrive  there  at  the  exact  moment  when  the  catas- 
trophe occurred — the  event  having  been  arranged,  ap- 
parently, with  a  scientific  accuracy  that  was  to  us  in 
those  days  quite  uncanny.  We  were  still  under  the 
excitement  produced  by  the  sudden  apparition  of  the 
Gloriosen  Canonen,  the  "Big  Berthas,"  Quarante- 
Deux, 

258 


NACH  PARIS 

"And  they  have  an  invention  by  sea  that  will  create 
the  same  staggering  sensation  in  the  world  that  the 
Forty-twos  have,"  he  remarked. 

They  had  not  told  Commander  Gherardi  what  this 
was,  or  if  they  had  he  did  not  tell  me ;  we  did  not  know 
then  so  much  as  we  do  now  about  the  submarine. 

With  the  resumption  of  an  intermittent  train  service, 
which  by  wp,y  of  Maestricht  could  take  one  into  Hol- 
land, those  who  could  obtain  passierscheins  began  to 
leaye  the  city.  The  American  colony  dwindled.  .  .  . 
The  few  diplomats  remaining  began  to  go.  Count 
Clary  et  Aldringen,  the  Austrian  Minister,  acting  dean 
of  the  diplomatic  corps,  had  turned  the  Austrian  Lega- 
tion over  to  me,  and  now  the  Clary s  were  gone.  They 
were  sad  to  leave  Brussels;  they  had  lived  there  for 
eleven  years,  and  were  very  popular.  Barros-Moreira 
was  only  waiting  for  a  special  train  to  take  out  his  Bra- 
zilian colony. 

The  Bottaro-Costas  were  going  back  to  Italy;  Grav- 
enskop-Castenskjold,  the  Danish  Minister,  was  leaving 
and  had  turned  his  Legation  over  to  me.  We  bade  them 
good-bye  there  in  the  Gare  du  Nord,  littered  with  straw, 
filled  with  cannon,  and  crowded  with  ill-smelling  sol- 
diers. Long  trains  of  wounded  were  going  back  to 
Germany;  the  trains  were  scribbled  over  in  chalk  with 
German  phrases  expressing  childish  hatred  of  England. 
On  our  little  party — Villalobar,  Burgomaster  Max,  and 
a  few  others — ^there  was  the  sadness  that  is  in  all  part- 
ings— ^which  are  like  so  many  little  deaths;  ^here  were 
the  prolonged  banalities,  finally  "All  aboard!"  in  Ger- 
man. Two  officers  in  monocles  step  on  the  train  as  it 
moves  off,  the  Countess  in  tears,  waving  her  handker- 
chief,    and    so    good-bye;     Gravenskop-Castenskjold 

259 


BELGIUM 

thrusting  his  hand  out  of  the  wagon  to  shout:  ''Pas 
un  Danois  a  Bruxelles!  mais  mettez  voire  drapeau 
sur  ma  Legation^   He  died  soon  after  at  The  Hague. 

It  was  a  relief  to  know  that  there  was  ''pas  un  Danois 
a  Bruojelles" — though  there  proved  to  be  several — as 
it  was  to  see  several  Americans  leave  on  the  train ;  it  was 
that  many  less  to  be  responsible  for,  though  whenever 
one  went  two  seemed  to  arrive.  I  had  been  concerned 
about  the  fate  of  an  American  artist,  Mr.  Stevens,  who 
had  left  when  McCutcheon  and  Cobb  and  the  rest  dis- 
appeared that  afternoon  toward  the  south ;  he  had  gone 
with  them,  as  we  supposed,  accompanied  by  a  French- 
man named  Gerbault,  a  newspaper  correspondent;  they 
had  gone  away  light-heartedly,  armed  with  cameras — of 
itself  enough  to  have  them  shot.  And  now  Mowrer,  the 
Paris  correspondent  of  the  Chicago  News,  arrived  to 
hunt  up  Stevens.  I  had  had  a  search  made,  and  had 
traced  him  to  SenefFe,  then  to  Manage,  then  to  Fayt; 
he  had  been  last  seen  at  the  French  frontier  crouching 
in  the  bottom  of  a  motor-car,  German  soldiers  holding 
revolvers  at  his  head. 

There  was  always  the  care  of  these  adventurous  ones, 
and  of  those  who  came  to  seek  them  or  came  themselves 
in  search  of  adventure.  They  had  not  the  slightest  no- 
tion of  conditions  in  Belgium,  nor  seemingly  any  power 
of  imagining  them.  After  a  few  days  they  were  glad  to 
be  allowed  to  leave  the  country  in  the  automobile  they 
had  once  fancied  would  facilitate  a  tour  of  the  devas- 
tated regions. 

I  had  not  then  toured  the  devastated  regions  myself 
but  had  had  numerous  reports  on  what  the  Germans  had 
wrought  in  producing  that  devastation,  brought  in  by 
the  refugees  who  had  fled  from  the  fear  of  like  calami- 

260 


NACH  PARIS 

ties;  they  came  every  day  to  the  Legation  in  the  fond 
hope  that  America  could  do  something  for  them',  and 
when  our  poor  impotence  was  revealed  they  told  their 
stories  anyhow,  for  the  mere  relief  the  recital  gave  them. 
Perhaps  it  did  them  good  as  well  to  know  that  there  was 
sympathy  for  them,  though,  as  we  were  more  and  more 
to  learn,  we  had  to  be  careful  in  expressing  our  sympa- 
thies; one  could  never  be  sure  one  was  not  talking  to  a 
spy.   Much  of  the  time,  indeed,  one  was. 

But  not  always;  the  look  of  horror  that  lingered  in 
eyes  that  had  gazed  on  horror  was  too  real  for  any  mis- 
take. Somehow  they  came  at  twilight,  and  the  day's 
trouble  was  rounded  off  with  some  awful  tale  like  that 
of  Louvain. 

It  was  on  the  eleventh  of  September  that  Les  Nouvel- 
les  puhliees  par  le  Gouvernement  allemand  ^  posted  on 

^  NoUVELLES    PuBLIEES    PaR    LE    GoUVERNEMENT    AlLEMAND 

Paris,  9  septembre. — Au  conseil  des  ministres  tenu  le  3  sep- 
tembre  a  Bordeaux,  le  ministre  de  la  guerre,  M.  Millerand,  a  fait 
rapport  sur  la  situation  militaire.  En  suite  on  a  traite  une  serie  de 
questions,  notamment  celle  de  I'alimentation.  La  session  parle- 
mentaire  a  ete  close. 

M.  Viviani,  president  du  conseil,  fait  ressortir  dans  sa  lettre  au 
president  de  la  Chambre  que  de  nombreux  deputes  se  trouvent  comme 
soldats  parmi  les  troupes  et  que  les  calamites  qui  pesent  sur  la 
France  augmentent  de  jour  en  jour  et  empechent  la  Chambre  de  se 
r6unir. 

Berlin,  10  septembre. — La  Norddeutsche  Allgemeine  Zeitung 
public  le  telegramme  suivant  adresse  par  I'empereur  au  president 
des  Etats-Unis  Wilson: 

"Je  considere  comme  mon  devoir.  Monsieur  le  President,  de  vous 
informer,  en  votre  qualite  de  representant  le  plus  distingue  des  prin- 
cipes  humanitaires,  de  ce  fait  que  mes  troupes  ont  trouve,  apres 
la  prise  de  la  forteresse  fran9aise  de  Longwy,  dans  cette  place,  des 
milliers  de  balles  dum-dum  travaillees  par  des  ateliers  speciaux  du 

261 


BELGIUM 

the  walls  of  Brussels  the  telegram  in  which  the  German 
Emperor  told  the  President  that  "the  Belgian  Govern- 
ment had  encouraged  the  civil  population  to  take  part  in 
the  war  which  it  had  carefully  prepared  for  so  long  a 
time."  The  Emperor  spoke  of  Louvain,  and  told  how 
his  heart  bled  when  he  saw  that  such  measures  "had  been 
inevitable."  "Mon  cceur  saigne"  thereafter  was  added 
to  the  current  phrases  of  irony  with  which  the  people  of 
Brussels  expressed  themselves  in  all  the  cruel  events  of 
the  war.  It  became  the  same  sort  of  bitter  joke  that 
"Gott  mit  Uns^'  had  been  since  the  people  had  been  ac- 

gouvernement.  Des  balles  de  la  meme  espece  ont  ete  trouvees  sur 
des  soldats  morts,  ou  blesses,  ou  prisonniers,  de  nationalite  anglaise. 
Vous  savez  quelles  horribles  blessures  et  soufFrances  sont  causees 
par  ces  balles  et  que  remploi  en  est  interdit  par  les  principes  re- 
connus  du  droit  international.  J'eleve  done  une  protestation  solen- 
nelle  contre  pareil  mode  de  faire  la  guerre  qui  est  devenue,  grace 
aux  methodes  de  nos  adversaires,  une  des  plus  barbares  de  I'histoire. 
"Non  seulement  ils  ont  employe  eux-memes  cette  arme  cruelle, 
mais  le  gouvernement  beige  a  encourage  ouvertement  la  population 
civile  a  prendre  part  a  cette  guerre  qu'il  avait  preparee  soigneuse- 
ment  depuis  longteraps.  Les  cruautes  commises  au  cours  de  cette 
guerilla  par  des  femmes  et  meme  par  des  pretres  contre  des  soldats 
blesses,  des  medecins  et  des  infirmieres  (des  medecins  ont  ete  tues 
et  des  lazarets  attaques  a  coups  de  feu),  ont  ete  telles  que  mes 
generaux  se  sont  iinalement  vus  obliges  de  recourir  aux  moyens  les 
plus  vigoureux  pour  chatier  les  coupables  et  pour  empecher  la  popu- 
lation sanguinaire  de  continuer  ces  abominables  actes  criminels  et 
odieux.  Plusieurs  villages  et  meme  la  ville  de  Louvain  ont  du  etre 
demolis  (sauf  le  tres  bel  hotel  de  ville)  dans  I'interet  de  notre  de- 
fense et  de  la  protection  de  mes  troupes.  Mon  cceur  saigne  quand 
je  vois  que  pareilles  mesures  ont  ete  rendues  inevitables,  et  quand 
je  songe  aux  innombrables  innocents  qui  ont  perdu  leur  toit  et  leurs 
biens  par  suite  des  faits  des  criminels  en  question. 

"WiLHELM  II,  K. 
"Le    Gouvernement    militaire    allemand." 

262 


NACH  PARIS  ^ 

customed  to  see  that  device  on  the  round  buckles  that 
glistened  on  the  German  belts,  until  some  one  thought 
of  "von  Gott/'  then  that  was  the  common  pleasantry. 
The  changes  were  rung  in  all  the  keys  and  many  a  tale 
was  invented  in  which  they  played  their  part. 

It  was  this  sense  of  humour,  indeed,  that  kept  up  the 
hearts  of  the  Belgian  people,  that  peculiar  esprit  that 
early  won  a  moral  victory  over  the  Germans.  This 
sense  of  humour  is  a  part  of  that  indomitable  courage 
wiiich  has  kept  the  Belgian  nation  alive  along  the  cal- 
vary of  its  tragic  history.  Even  Baudelaire,  the  French 
poet,  who  in  his  cruel  and  acidulous  spite  wrote  as  many 
nasty  things  about  the  Belgians  as  he  did  about  the 
Americans,  whom  he  so  detested,  has  reluctantly  ren- 
dered them  this  justice:  "always  oppressed,"  he  said, 
"but  never  conquered."  This  peculiar  savoury  wit,  this 
esprit  frondeur,  la  zwanze  Bruocelloise,  was  everywhere 
in  play,  and  it  was  not  long  before  even  the  children  of 
the  Marolliens,  as  they  played  at  war,  marching  and 
countermarching  there  under  the  shadow  of  the  Palais 
de  Justice,  had  a  new  game. 

"AchtungT  the  little  captain  of  the  band  would 
shout,  brandishing  his  wooden  sword,  "Nach  Paris!" 

And  then  the  little  command,  doing  the  goose-step, 
the  absurdity  of  which  did  not  escape  even  the  children, 
would  begin  to  march — backwards. 


XXXVIII 

THE  SIEGE  GUNS 

It  was  thus  that  the  children  doing  the  goo,  e-step  in 
the  Quartier  des  Marolles  in  order  to  mock  he  Ger- 
mans, celebrated  the  Battle  of  the  Marne  when  the  news 
in  its  mysterious  way  had  filtered  in.  How  they  learned 
it  I  do  not  know ;  even  we  in  our  world  knew  only  what 
I  have  told  and  what  we  learned  one  afternoon  when 
Villalobar  and  I  went  to  call  on  Herr  Dr.  von  Sandt, 
the  chief  of  the  Zivilverwaltung.  We  waited  for  awhile, 
for  the  chief  was  not  in.  The  Herr  Dr.  von  Sandt  was, 
as  I  recall  him,  what  might  be  called  a  handsome  man, 
dark  and  straight  and  tall,  with  a  haughty  bearing  and 
a  reputation  for  erudition.  The  numerous  functiona- 
ries that  crowded  the  rooms  where  he  was  installed  in  the 
Ministere  de  1' Agriculture,  there  in  the  Rue  de  la  Loi, 
addressed  him  as  "Excellenz"  as  he  came  in,  and  sprang 
to  their  feet  and  clicked  their  heels  loudly  and  politely 
as  he  passed  swiftly  through  the  room,  scowling  to  right 
and  left,  and  they  were  impressed,  or  perhaps  shocked, 
when  Villalobar  and  I  did  not  rise  but  remained  sitting 
in  his  presence.  They  were  but  the  vanguard  of  the  vast 
army  of  functionaries  that  soon  descended  on  Brussels 
and  crowded  all  the  bureaux  of  the  ministeres  and  began 
filling  reams  of  paper  with  their  figures,  statistics,  an- 
notations, commentaries  and  reports,  in  that  vast  and 
complicated  organization  that  must  dehumanize  life 
under  German  government.  We  were  not  sure  as  yet, 
Villalobar  and  I,  with  whom  we  were  to  have  our  deal- 

264 


THE  SIEGE  GUNS 

ings;  we  supposed  then  that  it  would  be  with  Dr.  von 
Sandt,  though  it  proved  not  to  be,  and  that  was  the 
only  time  we  ever  saw  him.  He  spoke  that  day,  after 
we  had  been  admitted  to  his  presence,  of  the  battle  of 
Paris,  "not  very  happily  begun,"  he  admitted.  But 
that  was  all.^ 

^  nouvelles  publiees 

Par  Le  Gouvernement  Allemand 

Berlin,  10  septembre. — Les  corps  d'armee  avances  au  cours  des 
poursuites,  sur  et  au-dela  de  la  Marne,  ont  ete  attaques,  par  des 
forces  superieures  venant  de  Paris,  entre  Meaux  et  Montmirail. 
Dans  de  grands  combats  durant  deux  jours,  ils  ont  arrete  rennemi 
et  ont  fait  eux-memes  des  progres. 

Lorsque  la  marche  en  avant  de  nouvelles  forces  ennemies  assez 
fortes  fut  annoncee,  notre  aile  s'est  repliee.  L'ennemi  n'a  suivi 
nulle  part.  Jusqu'ici  on  annonce,  comme  butin:  50  canons  et 
plusieurs  milliers  de  prisonniers. 

Berlin,  14  septembre  (officiel). — Sur  le  theatre  de  la  guerre  de 
rOuest  (France)  ont  eu  lieu  des  operations,  dont  les  details  ne 
peuvent  pas  etre  publics,  et  qui  ont  conduit  a  une  bataille  qui  est 
favorable  pour  nous.  Toutes  les  nouvelles  repandues  a  ce  sujet, 
par  tous  les  moyens,  par  l'ennemi,  et  qui  presentent  la  situation 
comme  defavorable  pour  nous,  sont  fausses. 

Berlin,  16  septembre  (officiel). — La  situation  sur  le  theatre  de  la 
guerre  de  I'Ouest  (France)  ne  s'est  pas  modifiee  depuis  hier.  En 
certains  endroits  du  front  de  bataille,  des  attaques  de  troupes  fran- 
9aises,  pendant  la  nuit  du  15  au  l6  septembre  et  pendant  la  journee 
du  16  septembre,  ont  ete  repoussees.  Certaines  contre-attaques  des 
troupes  allemandes  ont  ete  couronnees  de  succes. 

Berlin,  17  septembre. — Le  Lokalanzeiger,  de  Berlin,  ecrit,  avec 
I'approbation  de  I'autorite  militaire :  "Les  combats  sur  la  Marne  ne 
sont  done  pas  encore  termines,  mais  ils  ont  evidemment  pris  une 
tournure  favorable  pour  nous.  L'aile  droite  n'a  plus  cede  a  ime 
nouvelle  pression,  mais  elle  a,  au  contraire,  repousse  la  nouvelle 
tentative  frangaise  de  passer  a  travers  nos  rangs. 

265 


BELGIUM 

However,  if  the  Germans  were  not  investing  Paris 
they  were  besieging  Antwerp.  All  day  long  troops  were 
pouring  in  and  grey  motors  were  dashing  about — ^motors 
filled  with  officers  in  their  grey  uniforms  and  caps  with 
bands  of  crude  scarlet,  or  bright  blue,  or  vivid  yellow. 
Long  trains  rumbled  by  loaded  with  cannons  covered 
over  with  green  boughs.  In  the  evening,  when  the  town 
was  still  there  would  be  that  fearful  drumming  of  iron 
heels  on  the  pavements,  and  those  Alberichs  would  go 
trudging  by. 

And  there  came  one  evening  to  our  ears  a  sound  like 
the  slamming  of  a  distant  heavy  door.     We  listened. 

Vienne,  17  septembre  (officiel). — II  resulte  des  rapports  officiels 
de  nos  chefs  d'etapes  que  jusqu'ici  41,000  Russes  et  8,000  Serbes 
ont  ete  conduits  comme  prisonniers  dans  I'interieur  de  I'empire 
allemand.  Jusqu'ici  nous  avons  gagne  300  canons  de  campagne. 
En  resume,  nous  pouvons  afBrmer  que  notre  armee  a  resiste  heroi- 
quement  et  avec  grand  succes  a  un  ennemi  numeriquement  superieur 
et  combattant  avec  bravoure  et  opiniatrete. 

Berlin,  17  septembre,  au  soir. — Dans  la  bataille  entre  I'Oise  et 
la  Meuse  (done  sur  le  theatre  de  guerre  en  France),  la  decision 
definitive  n'est  pas  encore  intervenue;  mais  certains  indices  font 
reconnaitre  que  la  force  de  resistance  de  I'adversaire  faiblit.  Sur 
I'extreme  aile  droite,  elle  s'est  ecroulee  sans  qu'un  eifort  special  de 
nos  troupes  ait  ete  fait.  Le  centre  de  I'armee  allemande  gagne 
lentement,  mais  surement  du  terrain.  Les  tentatives  de  sorties,  sur 
la  rive  droite  de  la  Meuse,  de  Verdun  sont  repoussees  facilement. 
Le  Gouvernement  militaire  allemand. 

This  affiche,  pretending  that  the  struggle  along  the  Marne  had 
evidently  taken  a  turn  in  favour  of  the  Germans,  and  that  the  resist- 
ance of  the  Allied  armies  was  broken  by  the  Germans  without  effort, 
only  caused  the  people  of  Brussels  to  laugh,  for,  they  knew  what  a 
defeat  the  Germans  had  sustained  on  the  Marne.  On  a  certain  num- 
ber of  these  affiches,  after  the  phrase  "The  center  of  the  German 
army  is  slowly  but  surely  gaining  ground,"  a  mischievous  hand  added 
the  words  "toward  Berlin." 

266 


THE  SIEGE  GUNS 

The  sound  came  again,  and  again,  punctuating  the  still- 
ness with  heavy  thuds.  And  we  knew  that  the  siege  of 
Antwerp  had  begun.  The  next  morning  the  sound  was 
even  more  audible  in  the  heavy  air.  The  ominous  deto- 
nations rumbled  like  far-off  thunder,  and  the  awful  echo 
was  tossed  back  and  forth  across  the  grey  sky  where  a 
German  Taube  was  flying. 

The  sound  of  the  guns  increased  in  intensity;  it  had 
the  quality  of  a  sullen  and  stupid  reiteration,  as  though 
there  were  some  argument  in  the  mere  bellowing,  in  the 
constant  asseveration  of  the  same  thing.  The  booming 
detonations  shook  the  houses ;  the  windows  in  certain  at- 
mospheres would  rattle.  The  weather  was  grey  and 
heavy;  there  were  frequent  gusts  of  rain  and  a  general 
intolerable  depression  began  to  settle  down  upon  the 
world.  The  people  went  about  with  long  faces — those 
Brussels  faces  that  used  to  be  almost  naively  happy; 
men  as  they  met  could  only  assure  each  other,  after 
glancing  about  to  see  that  no  spy  was  within  earshot, 
that  the  forts  of  Antwerp  were  impregnable.  Mourning 
began  to  appear;  people  were  hearing  of  the  deaths  of 
sons  and  brothers.  Even  Le  Jeune,  the  coifeur,  had 
lost  his  gaiety.  Figaro,  if  as- voluble  as  ever,  was  not  so 
insouciant;  he  had  two  sons  at  the  front;  one  of  them 
had  been  a  steward  on  the  Red  Star  Line  and  a  great 
boxer — ''il  a  de  jolis  biceps"  said  Le  Jeune  proudly. 
He  was  one  of  those  fortunate  persons  ,who  find  all 
things  relating  to  themselves  superlative.  He  was  filled 
with  a  terrible  hatred  of  the  Germans  and  was  waiting 
for  the  Cossacks  to  double  the  atrocities  committed  by 
the  Germans — though  he  never  referred  to  them  as  Ger- 
mans, but  always  as  "les  hoches,"  with  all  the  loathing 

267 


BELGIUM 

the  word  connotes.    His  one  regret,  he  said,  was  that  he 
could  not  go  to  the  front  himself. 

"Moi"  he  would  say,  ''je  suis  un  des  meilleurs  tireurs 
qui  eodstent,  vous  savez"  But  he  was  too  old. 

Then  the  Cuban  Vice-Consul  came  through  from 
Ghent  with  a  letter  from  London  and  the  news  that  the 
Burgomaster  of  Ghent,  following  the  example  of  Bur- 
gomaster Max  at  Brussels,  had  arranged  for  the  capitu- 
lation of  the  city.  This  was  happy  news,  but  our  feel- 
ings were  dashed  at  once,  for  James  Barnes,  who  had 
come  into  Belgium  and  gone  to  Ghent,  came  back  from 
that  city  late  in  the  evening  and  told  us,  to  our  dismay, 
that  after  the  peaceful  entry  of  the  Germans  had  been 
agreed  upon,  an  armored  car  equipped  with  a  mitrail- 
leuse, driven,  it  was  said,  by  a  former  taxi-driver  from 
New  York,  and  manned  by  two  foolhardy  youths, 
dashed  into  town,  opened  fire,  and  wounded  a  German 
officer  and  his  orderly.  And  so  we  might  expect  an- 
other horror! 

Late  in  the  afternoon  little  Bulle  came — we  called 
him  "little"  Bulle  in  our  affection  when  we  did  not  call 
him  Hermancito.  His  eyes  were  wide  with  a  new  hor- 
ror; he  brought  the  dreadful  story  that  five  hundred 
German  soldiers  had  been  murdered  in  their  beds  the 
night  before  at  Louvain,  their  throats  all  cut  while  they 
slept.  Bulle  had  been  told  this  by  the  Frau  Grabowsky, 
the  wife  of  the  old  white-haired  Conseiller  Aulique  of 
the  German  Legation,  and  she  said  that  she  had  the  de- 
tails from  her  husband.  The  tale  had  its  effect  on  us, 
of  course,  but  I  had  just  set  myself  to  the  task  of  analyz- 
ing it,  in  the  belief  that  it  could  not  be  true,  when  luckily 
von  der  Lancken  came — very  calm  and  casual,  very 
smart  in  his  light  grey-blue  tunic  and  dark  trousers  held 

268 


THE  SIEGE  GUNS 

under  his  boots  by  straps,  and  carrying  a  little  cravache. 
He  said  he  had  just  come  from  Louvain,  and  I  asked 
him  fearfully,  and  yet  with  an  air  as  unconcerned  as  I 
could  adopt,  how  things  were  going  on  there. 

"Why,  all  right,"  he  said. 

Then  I  told  him  of  the  latest  rumour,  and  he  was 
grimly  amused  and  I  immensely  relieved ;  there  was  not 
a  word  of  truth  in  it. 


XXXIX 

THE  ADVENTURE  OF  THE  DUCHESS 

Th:e  Baron  von  der  Lancken  had  dropped  in  that 
evening  to  inquire  about  Gibson,  who  two  days  before 
had  gone  to  Antwerp  with  despatches.  Gibson  had 
been  accompanied  by  the  old  Count  Woeste,  a  distin- 
guished Belgian  statesman  just  then  experiencing 
among  his  Belgian  fellow  citizens  the  unpopularity  of 
the  pacifist  in  times  of  war.  He  had  asked  for  a  seat  in 
our  motor,  and  we  had  granted  the  request  without  ask- 
ing why  he  wished  to  go  to  Antwerp ;  and  when  a  little 
red-haired  German  soldier,  with  his  front  teeth  all  gone, 
and  a  great  gun  on  his  back,  had  come  in  the  rain  bear- 
ing Gibson's  passierschein,  the  name  of  the  Count  was 
on  it,  as  was  also  that  of  the  Marquis  of  Faura,  secre- 
tary of  the  Spanish  Legation,  whom  Gibson  was  to 
bring  back  from  Antwerp  that  he  might  be  at  the  bed- 
side of  a  dying  son.  Gibson,  excited  with  the  prospect 
of  adventure,  had  departed  with  his  elderly  companion, 
and  the  Pasha  had  arranged  an  entr'acte,  agreeing  to 
leave  off  firing  for  a  time,  to  allow  them  to  pass  through 
the  lines;  and  they  went  bearing  a  napkin  to  use  as  a 
white  flag — like  Napoleon  III  and  his  table  cloth. 

The  Count  had  gone,  as  the  event  proved,  to  inquire 
whether  his  Government  would  be  disposed  to  consider 
some  means,  if  they  could  be  found,  of  discussing  terms. 
It  was  said  by  the  gossips,  that  there  were  those  who 
felt  that  Belgium  had  done  her  duty  and  that  some  sort 
of  truce  was  not  impossible.    Indeed,  I  had  had  a  call 

270 


THE  ADVENTURE  OF  THE  DUCHESS 

from  three  gentlemen,  Belgians,  one  of  whom  was  con- 
nected with  the  Brussels  branch  of  the  Deutsche  Bank 
who  came  to  me  one  afternoon — it  was  Wednesday,  the 
second  of  September — with  some  tentative  suggestion  of 

conference  and  armistice.    M.  D told  me  that  the 

Germans  had  summoned  the  forts  of  Antwerp  to  surren- 
der, and  with  great  hesitation,  and  with  evident  appre- 
ciation of  the  fact  that  he  was  venturing  on  most  dan- 
gerous ground,  suggested  that  some  sort  of  truce  be  ar- 
ranged by  the  President.  I  could,  of  course,  have  noth- 
ing to  do  with  such  a  delicate  business.  I  could  only 
explain  very  carefully  the  neutral  position  of  my  coun- 
try and  that  I  could  make  no  demarche  on  unofficial  rep- 
resentations or  without  authority  from  Washington. 

And  M.  D wheeled  into  the  discussion  those  famous 

cannon — a  formidable  argument,  to  be  sure ! 

Gibson  was  back  in  a  day  or  two,  with  Count  Woeste 
who,  however  much  a  pacifist,  had  shown  no  fear  of  the 
military  movements  they  were  compelled  to  drive 
through  on  their  return  journey,  but  was  as  unconcerned 
under  fire  as  though  he  had  been  a  militarist.  His  mis- 
sion, whatever  it  was,  had  been  wholly  a  failure,  and  any 
proposal  of  discussion  or  arrangement  he  may  have 
made  at  Antwerp  had  been  coldly  received  and  in- 
stantly refused. 

It  was  a  relief,  but  worry  was  never  absent  long  and 
it  promptly  came  in  its  protean  form,  as  a  note  from 
the  Duchess  of  Sutherland,  written  from  the  Hotel  As- 
toria— a  hostelry  which  the  Germans  had  taken  over,  as 
they  had  the  classic  Hotel  de  Bellevue  et  Flandre  and 
most  of  the  other  hotels  in  Brussels,  to  be  used  as  a  club 
for  officers. 

271 


BELGIUM 

The  note  of  the  Duchess  was  urgent,  and  I  went  at 
once,  not  altogether  unprepared  to  find  her  under  ar- 
rest, since  one  of  the  physicians  attached  to  her  ambu- 
lance had  been  in  several  times  from  Namur  to  report 
the  various  difficulties  the  Germans  were  already  caus- 
ing them  there.  She  and  the  nurses  with  her,  had  re- 
mained in  Namur  throughout  the  bombardment  of  the 
twenty- third  of  August,  and  during  the  days  of  the 
dreadful  week  that  followed.  Afterwards  the  Duchess 
had  taken  her  Red  Cross  establishment  to  Maubeuge. 
But  now  Maubeuge  had  fallen;  we  had  had  that  news 
from  James  Barnes  and  from  Commander  Gherardi  of 
our  Navy,  who  had  returned  after  witnessing  the  reduc- 
tion of  the  city. 

The  Astoria  had  an  empty  air,  and  the  porter  in  his 
uniform  was  somewhat  subdued  in  manner  by  the  new 
guests  installed  there,  but  he  sent  me  up  at  once  to  the 
apartments  of  the  Duchess,  and  at  her  door  I  found  two 
unshaven  and  unkempt  sentinels  who,  while  doubtless 
not  barbarians,  smelled  very  much  like  barbarians.  They 
denied  me  entrance,  of  course.  I  sent  for  an  under 
officer  who  was  there,  but  he  was  powerless,  and  then  I 
found  an  obliging  Oberleutnant  who  spoke  French;  he 
went  at  once  to  the  Kommandantur  and  returned  with 
Major  Bayer,  who  apologized  for  the  delay,  scolded  the 
two  sentinels,  and  gave  orders  that  I  was  to  see  the 
Duchess  at  once. 

She  was  indisposed  and  reclining,  but  sprightly  in  her 
smart  English  speech,  recounting  her  experiences  since 
leaving  Namur  with  her  Red  Cross  Ambulance.  Ger- 
man officers  had  promised  her  accommodations  in  a 
train  to  Holland  via  Aix-la-Chapelle,  but  she  was  suspi- 
cious and  feared  that  she  might  be  taken  to  Germany 

272 


THE  ADVENTURE  OF  THE  DUCHESS 

and  held  for  ransom.  I  assured  her  that  there  was  little 
likelihood  of  that  and  that  I  should  try  to  arrange  for 
her  to  go  to  Holland.  But  she  did  not  wish  to  start  for 
several  days ;  she  was  not  feeling  quite  up  to  the  journey, 
and  was  willing  to  give  her  word  of  honour  that  she 
would  keep  to  her  room  and  her  bed.  She  was  enjoying 
her  adventure  with  the  relish  that  our  realist  Anglo- 
Saxon  race  has  in  all  that  savours  of  the  romantic,  but 
I  was  just  then  for  speeding  all  parting  guests  of  that 
race.  The  fact  that  she  was  not  quite  ready  to  go  was, 
however,  an  excellent  argument  to  employ  on  the  Ger- 
man mentality,  and  I  spent  futile  hours  trying  to  see 
Major  Bayer  to  ask  him  to  permit  the  Duchess  to  re- 
main. But  I  could  not  find  him ;  the  world  had  changed 
into  a  pandemonium  of  grey  motors,  grey  uniforms, 
unshaven  sentries  and,  no  doubt,  swarming  spies,  in 
which  it  was  growing  more  and  more  difficult  to  find 
one's  way  about.  But  at  the  close  of  the  day,  as  Villa- 
lobar  and  I  were  telling  each  other  our  experiences. 
Baron  von  der  Lancken  suddenly  appeared;  he  was  just 
in  from  the  field  of  battle  near  Louvain,  and  in  his  gi'eat 
flowing  cape  of  light  bluish-grey,  with  its  upturned 
white  collar,  and  his  silver  helmet  he  looked  like  Lohen- 
grin, but  a  Lohengrin  whose  swan  had  overturned  his 
frail  bark  for  he  was  quite  wet  through  and  worn  with 
fatigue.  I  gave  him  a  glass  of  wine,  and  took  advantage 
of  the  moment  to  arrange  for  the  departure  of  the 
Duchess,  nurses,  and  doctors.  Von  der  Lancken  ob- 
tained a  motor,  or  two  motors,  for  them,  and  the  neces- 
sary papers  and  I  asked  James  Barnes  to  escort  them 
to  Holland.  Two  days  later  the  Duchess  was  out  again, 
interesting  in  her  nurse's  garb,  and  at  the  Legation  she 
asked  to  see  the  Times  newspaper.  There  were  some  old 

273 


BELGIUM 

copies  and  settled  herself  in  a  corner  of  the  salon  to 
go  carefully  over  the  long  list  of  dead  and  wounded. 
And  when  she  had  done  she  quietly  folded  the  paper, 
laid  down  her  eye-glasses,  and  looking  up  with  an  ex- 
pression from  which  all  the  zest  of  adventure  had  gone, 
said: 

"This  is  probably  the  end  of  the  world ;  there  will  be 
none  living  after  the  war.  I  dread  going  back  to  Eng- 
land, where  there  will  always  be  a  newspaper  with  its 
'roll  of  honour.'  " 

We  were  only  beginning  to  learn  what  the  war  would 
do  to  us;  just  beginning  to  apprehend  that  the  world 
could  never  again  be  what  it  had  been — that  all  those 
who  survived  would  be  themselves  mutiles,  with  wounds 
that  would  never  heal. 


XL 


THEY  ARE  PRUSSIANS 


All  day  long  we  heard  the  cannonade,  that  dull 
thump  of  the  guns.  We  used  to  stand  in  fascinated  si- 
lence and  listen  and  mark  the  intervals  between  the  re- 
ports. The  Belgians  were  making  sorties,  and  they  were 
still  contesting  with  the  Germans  the  possession  of  Ma- 
lines.  Gibson  had  seen  the  King  standing  in  the  midst 
of  a  field  of  turnips,  covered  with  mud  and  the  grime  of 
battle.  And  meanwhile  the  Germans  had  taken  the  sum- 
mer palace  at  Laeken — there,  where  the  dancers  from 
the  Monnaie  had  moved  to  those  sweet  measures  of 
Gliick,  and  they  had  rummaged  through  the  apartments 
and  drunk  the  King's  wine.  The  King  had  smiled,  so 
the  story  ran,  when  he  was  told  of  this,  and  he  said  that, 
as  a  total  abstainer,  he  could  not  vouch  for  the  quality  of 
the  wine;  but  Brussels  was  indignant.  Saddened  refu- 
gees were  pouring  ever  into  Brussels  and  finding  homes 
somewhere  among  the  poor,  who  are  always  so  hospita- 
ble and  are  so  near  to  pain  and  trouble  always  that  they 
share  the  little  that  pain  and  trouble  leave  them. 

Three  times  the  Germans  had  taken  Malines,  and 
three  times  the  Belgian  troops  had  driven  them  out,  and 
each  time  in  the  sting  of  defeat  the  Germans  had 
wreaked  their  vengeance  on  the  civilian  population.  The 
lovely  Grand'  Place  was  destroyed  and  the  cathedral 
almost  battered  down — the  cathedral  where  on  moonlit 

275 


BELGIUM 

summer  evenings  Jeff  Denyn  used  to  play  the  carillons^ 
filling  all  the  air  with  their  lovely  music,  and  where  the 
tall  figure  of  the  Cardinal  came  and  went,  in  lace  and 
scarlet  and  red  hat. 

Meanwhile  fresh  troops  poured  through  Brussels 
every  day,  and  every  morning  along  the  boulevards  the 
Germans  paraded  the  enormous  Austrian  cannons  that 
were  moving  up  to  the  siege,  and  when  it  was  not  can- 
nons it  was  mitrailleuses,  with  their  menace  for  the  peo- 
ple. And  all  about  the  Palais  de  Justice  sand  bags  were 
piled  to  make  a  barricade,  and  guns  gaped  over  the  ramp 
toward  the  quarter  of  the  Marolles  just  below. 

In  the  afternoons  German  officers  rode  their  horses 
along  the  avenues  and  into  the  Bois.  It  was  the  hour 
of  the  promenade  in  the  Avenue  Louise;  under  the 
chestnut-trees  that  blossom  twice  a  year  along  the  wide 
plaisance,  broad  parterres  where  on  pleasant  afternoons 
there  used  to  be  ladies  and  gentlemen  walking,  bows  and 
smiles  and  lifted  hats,  pretty  children,  toy-dogs  with 
jingling  harnesses,  old  women  selling  toy-balloons  and 
girls  selling  flowers — notes  of  bright  colour  in  the  en- 
semble. In  those  days,  those  feverish  days  of  expect- 
ancy, the  people  clung  to  the  old  habit  and  took  the  air 
there  as  before,  though  there  were  no  more  smiles,  and 
the  hats  were  lifted  solemnly,  and  one  by  one  the  ladies 
all  appeared  in  mourning.  But  the  children,  with  the 
charming  insouciance  of  childhood,  still  played  there, 
and  the  gay  little  Griffons  and  the  swaggering  Pekinese 
were  all  unconcerned,  and  the  old  woman  waddled  about 
with  the  great  cluster  of  toy-balloons  in  all  their  translu- 
cent colours,  bobbing  against  each  other  above  her  head. 

And  it  was  precisely  along  this  promenade,  and  not 
in  the  bridle-path,  the  tan-bark  road  across  the  way — 

276 


THEY  ARE  PRUSSIANS 

"Vallee  reservee  auoo  cavaliers" — that  the  German  offi- 
cers would  gallop,  straight,  erect,  with  the  monocles 
fixed  in  the  arrogant  faces  that  bore  the  scars  of  their 
prudent  duels,  while  the  children  and  the  nursemaids 
scattered  right  and  left. 

I  watched  them  in  amazement  and  with  a  rising  feel- 
ing in  my  breast — and  there  just  across  the  way  the  soft 
tan  bark,  empty  and  unused. 

And  one  evening  after  I  had  despatched  some  busi- 
ness with  a  German  officer  of  high  rank,  I  could  not 
resist  the  impulse  to  ask  him  why  the  officers  must  needs 
gallop  along  the  promenade  when  a  few  yards  away 
there  was  such  an  excellent  tan-bark  route,  made  ex- 
pressly for  riding.  He  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  re- 
plied sententiously : 

"Sont  les  Prussiens!" 

He  checked  himself  as  though  regretting  the  admis- 
sion, and  then  he  added : 

"Faut  pas  repeter  cela;  vous  savez,  on  doit  mater  les 
Beiges."  And  he  brought  down  a  closed  fist  on  the 
table. 

Two  days  later,  however,  barriers  were  put  up  across 
the  allee  reservee  aux  pietons,  with  openings  just  large 
enough  to  permit  one  to  pass.  The  children  played  there 
again,  the  daily  promenades  were  resumed,  and  the 
officers  rode  thereafter  along  the  bridle-path.  I  never 
knew  whether  my  remark  had  anything  to  do  with  that 
or  not;  probably  not.  Post  hoc,  ergo  propter  hoc  is 
one  of  the  logical  fallacies,  as  I  used  to  read  in  Jevons. 

I  could  be  more  certain  of  the  effect  of  the  paper 
which  General  Baron  von  Luttwitz  so  kindly  gave  me 
to  protect  the  villa  Bois-Fleuri,  at  Quatre  Bras.  I  had 
procured  the  paper  to  quiet  Victor's  apprehensions,  but 

277 


BELGIUM 

one  afternoon  Victor  came  into  town  and  reported  that 
on  three  occasions  German  soldiers  had  overrun  the 
house,  rummaging  everywhere,  and  that  finally,  when  he 
produced  the  paper  and  showed  it,  the  officer  in  com- 
mand said ; 

"Oh  yes,  this  is  the  house  of  the  American  Minister,^ 
and  we  have  orders  not  to  visit  it,  even  if  there  should 
be  wine  in  the  cellar!" 

However,  they  amused  themselves  by  making  Vic- 
tor's wife  dance  for  them,  spurring  her  by  tapping  sig- 
nificantly on  their  pistol  holsters.  There  were  no  orders, 
of  course,  against  that;  and  the  gardener's  poor,  over- 
awed wife  could  not  dance  very  well. 

What  orders  there  were,  indeed,  seemed  to  be  for  the 
Belgians,  and  these,  with  their  numerous  prohibitions 
conveyed  in  affiches^  came  to  take  up  almost  as  much 
room  on  the  walls  of  Brussels  as  the  news  of  German 
victories  conveyed  in  JLes  Nouvelles  puhliees  par  le  Gou- 
vernement  Allemand.  Brussels  had  taken  heart  of  grace 
from  a  rumour  that  the  German  army  was  in  retreat  in 
France;  it  took  so  little  to  encourage  the  Belgians  and 
to  send  their  spirits  mounting.  Up  to  that  time,  even 
though  the  three  days  that  the  German  troops  were  to 
have  been  passing  through  the  city  had  lengthened  into 
three  weeks  and  the  Germans  were  installing  a  govern- 
ment, the  townspeople  had  persistently  considered  the 
conditions  as  temporary ;  they  were  convinced  that  Ant- 
werp was  impregnable,  and  every  time  the  wind  blew 
the  sound  of  cannonading  nearer  they  were  persuaded 
that  the  English  were  coming  to  the  relief.  But  slowly 
the  hand  was  laid  more  heavily  upon  them.  One  morn- 
ing I  went  downstairs  and  found  a  man  with  a  very 
long,  dark,  serious  face. 

278 


THEY  ARE  PRUSSIANS 

"It's  the  last  straw!    The  people  won't  endure  it!" 

"What?"  I  asked. 

"Why,  the  order  about  the  pigeons,"  he  said. 

There  was  a  new  affiche  ^  that  morning  stating  that 
German  soldiers  had  orders  to  fire  on  any  civilian  riding 
a  bicycle,  and  that  any  one  possessing  carrier  pigeons 
would  be  tried  by  court  martial.  The  interdiction  of 
pigeons  was  the  last  straw;  the  population  would  be  in 
revolt.  We  laughed;  it  seemed  so  ridiculous.  Of  what 
importance  were  a  few  pigeons? 

But  it  was  important  to  the  Belgians,  for,  as  de  Leval 
explained,  the  rearing  and  training  of  pigeons  was  a 
national  sport,  almost  as  popular  as  archery.     Every 

^  Avis 

1.  La  circulation  des  automobiles  privees,  motocyclettes  et  velos 
est  interdite  tant  pour  la  ville  de  Bruxelles  que  pour  les  faubourgs, 
sauf  a  des  personnes  munies  d'un  permis  special  du  commandant 
allemand  (rue  de  la  Loi,  6). 

Ces  permis  ne  seront  delivres  qu'en  cas  d'urgence. 

Toute  contravention  sera  punie  de  la  saisie  des  vehicules. 

L'ordre  formel  a  ete  donne  aux  troupes  allemandes  operant  a 
I'alentour  de  Bruxelles  de  tirer  sur  chaque  cycliste  en  civil.  Cette 
mesure  s'impose  parce  qu'on  a  des  preuves  que  la  garnison  d'Anvers 
a  ete  informee  continuellement  des  mouvements  de  nos  troupes  par 
I'intermediaire  de  cyclistes. 

2.  Les  personnes  qui,  apres  le  15  septembre,  sont  encore  en 
possession  de  pigeons  voyageurs,  ainsi  que  d'autres  personnes  qui, 
par  des  signaux  ou  n'importe  quel  autre  moyen,  essayeront  de  nuire 
aux  interets  militaires  allemands,  seront  juges  d'apres  les  lois  de  la 
guerre. 

Bruxelles,  le   13  septembre,   1914. 

Le  gouverneur  militaire  allemand 
de  Bruxelles, 

(signe)    VON  Luttwitz, 

General. 
279 


BELGIUM 

Belgian  who  could  afford  it  had  a  colombier  or  if  it  were 
not  quite  that  popular,  many  persons  had  colomhiers; 
they  had  their  clubs  and  on  Sundays  their  contests;  the 
land  was  filled  with  colombophiles  as  jealous  of  their 
rights  as  the  lords  of  the  olden  times  when  the  possession 
of  a  colombier  was  one  of  the  seignorial  privileges. 

The  Germans,  no  doubt,  feared  that  pigeons  might 
soar  away  with  information;  a  similar  fear  was  the  mo- 
tive for  the  harsh  measures  with  regard  to  cyclists.  The 
guards  were  increased  everywhere ;  sentinels  were  placed 
at  the  Porte  de  Namur,  at  the  Porte  Louise,  at  the  en- 
trance to  the  Bois — everywhere. 

Each  morning  had  its  new  prohibition;  it  was  forbid- 
den to  take  photographs  in  the  street  and  public  places, 
or  to  distribute  newspapers,  or  to  tamper  with  telegraph 
or  telephone  wires.  There  were  oft-repeated  menaces, 
embracing  whole  populations.  "Localities  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  which  telegraph  or  telephone  lines  are  de- 
stroyed will  be  punished  by  a  war  contribution,  no  mat- 
ter whether  the  inhabitants  of  the  locality  are  guilty  or 
not."  ^ 

^  Avis  Qfficiel 

Les  automobiles,  les  motocyclettes  et  les  velos  prives  ne  peuvent 
circuler  dans  les  regions  beiges  occupees  par  les  troupes  allemandes 
qu'a  la  condition  qu'ils  soient  conduits  par  des  soldats  allemands 
ou  que  le  conducteur  soit  en  possession  d'un  permis  valable. 

Ces  sortes  de  permis  sont  delivres  uniquement  par  les  com- 
mandants de  place  locaux,  et  seulement  dans  les  cas  urgents, 

Toute  contravention  a  cette  ordonnance  entrainera  la  saisie  de 
I'automobile,  de  la  motocyclette  ou  du  velo. 

Quiconque  essayera  de  passer,  sans  permis,  les  avant-postes  ou 
troupes  allemandes,  ou  quiconque  s'en  approchera  de  telle  fa9on  que 
les  apparences  d'une  reconnaissance  sont  presentees,  sera  fusille 
sur  le  champ. 

280 


THEY  ARE  PRUSSIANS 

And  then  one  morning  there  was  an  affiche  that  bore 
a  final  humiliation,  gave  a  last  blow  to  Belgian  pride — 
the  Belgian  flag  was  ordered  down.  Many  had  taken  in 
their  flags  and  closed  their  windows  and  shut  their  doors 
the  day  the  Germans  arrived,  but  there  were  houses 
where  the  flags  of  black  and  yellow  and  red  still  floated ; 
and  now  these  must  come  down.  They  might  be  "con- 
sidered a  provocation,"  announced  the  avis  of  General 
von  Liittwitz,  "by  German  troops  sojourning  in  or  pass- 
ing through  Brussels."  And  he  added :  "The  Military 
Government  has  no  intention  by  this  measure  to  wound 
the  sentiments  and  the  dignity  of  the  inhabitants.  It 
had  no  other  end  in  view  than  to  preserve  the  citizens 
from  harm."  ^ 

But  the  people  read  the  affiche  in  sorrow  and  in 
shame.     The  flags  came  down — those  of  the  Palace 

Les  localites  dans  le  voisinage  desquelles  les  lignes  telegraphiques 
ou  telephoniques  sont  detruites,  seront  frappees  d'une  contribution 
de  guerre,  peu  importe  que  les  habitants  en  soient  coupables  ou  non. 
Cette  ordonnance  entre  en  vigueur  a  partir  du  20  de  ce  mois. 
Bruxelles,  le  17  septembre,  191 1- 

Le  gouverneur  general  en  Belgique, 

Baron  von  der  Goltz, 
General  Feldmarechal. 
'Avis 

La  population  de  Bruxelles,  comprenant  bien  ses  propres  in- 
terets,  a  observe  en  general  des  I'entree  des  troupes  allemandes 
jusqu'a  present  I'ordre  et  le  calme.  Pour  cette  raison,  je  n'ai  pas 
encore  pris  des  mesures  pour  defendre  le  pavoisement  de  drapeaux 
beiges,  considere  comme  une  provocation  par  les  troupes  allemandes 
qui  sont  de  sejour  ou  de  passage  a  Bruxelles.  C'est  precisement 
pour  eviter  que  nos  troupes  ne  soient  amenees  a  agir  de  leur  propre 
gre,  que  j 'engage  maintenant  les  proprietaires  des  maisons  de  faire 
rentrer  les  drapeaux  beiges. 

Le  gouvernement  militaire  n'a  aucunement  I'intention  de  froisser 

281 


BELGIUM 

Hotel  at  the  significant  touch  of  a  pistol  by  its  wearer. 
But  the  following  morning  there  appeared  another 
affiche,  signed  by  Burgomaster  Max — a  proclamation 
that  was  like  a  cry  of  wounded  pride,  ringing  clear  with 
patriotism;  it  recalled  the  original  proclamation  of  the 
Governor- General  Baron  von  der  Goltz  Pasha,  which 
said  that  no  Belgian  would  be  called  upon  to  renounce 
his  patriotic  sentiments,  but  it  begged  the  people  "to 
make  this  additional  sacrifice,  and  patiently  to  await  the 
hour  of  reparation."  * 

par  cette  mesure  les  sentiments  et  la  dignite  des  habitants.     II  a  le 
seul  but  de  preserver  les  citoyens  de  tout  dommage. 
Bruxelles,  le  16  septembre,  1914. 

Baron  von  Lijttwitz, 
General  et  gouverneur. 

*  ViLLE    DE    BrUXELLES 

Chers  Concitoyens 

Un  avis,  affiche  aujourd'hui,  nous  apprend  que  le  Drapeau  beige 
arbore  aux  fa9ades  de  nos  demeures  est  considere  comme  une  "provo- 
cation" par  les  troupes  allemandes. 

Le  Feld-Marechal  von  der  Goltz,  dans  sa  proclamation  du  2  sep- 
tembre  disait  pourtant  "ne  demander  a  personne  de  renier  ses  senti- 
ments patriotiques."  Nous  ne  pouvions  done  prevoir  que  I'affirma- 
tion  de  ces  sentiments  serait  tenue  pour  une  ofFense. 

L'affiche  qui  nous  le  revele  a  ete,  ^e  le  reconnais,  redigee  en  termes 
mesures  et  avec  le  souci  de  menager  nos  susceptibilites. 

Elle  n'en  blessera  pas  moins,  d'une  maniere  profonde,  I'ardente 
et  fiere  population  de  Bruxelles, 

Je  demande  a  cette  population  de  donner  un  nouvel  exemple  du 
sang-froid  et  de  la  grandeur  d'ame  dont  elle  a  fourni  deja  tant  de 
preuves  en  ces  jours  douloureux. 

Acceptons  provisoirement  le  sacrifice  qui  nous  est  impose,  retirons 
nes  drapeaux  pour  eviter  des  conflits,  et  attendons  patiemment 
heure  de  la  reparation. 

Bruxelles,  le  16  septembre,  1914. 

Adolphe  Max,  Le  Bourgmestre. 
282 


THEY  ARE  PRUSSIANS 

The  answer  of  the  Military  Governor  of  Brussels  to 
this  appeared  the  next  day,  all  over  the  town  on  all  the 
walls;  the  proclamations  of  the  Burgomaster  had  been 
covered  over  during  the  night  by  white  paper — blank. 


283 


XLI 

THE  PLIGHT  OF  THE  BARON 

Perhaps  I  can  convey  the  impression  of  those  rest- 
less rainy  days — for  the  good  weather  was  done — days 
of  various  glooms  and  fears  and  cares,  no  better  than 
by  extracting  from  the  notes  I  made  at  the  time  of  some 
of  the  typical  incidents.  I  had  never  kept  a  journal  in 
my  life;  such  things  seemed  to  belong  to  that  far-off 
Victorian  age  before  the  art,  like  the  art  of  correspond- 
ence, had  declined,  before  the  newly-invented  expedients 
of  a  more  eager  and  nervous  day,  with  its  telegraphs  and 
telephones  and  its  hideous  coloured  post-cards.  We  had 
none  of  those  conveniences  of  course,  and  I  used  to  jot 
down  notes  at  the  close  of  days  that  were  so  full  of  care 
and  annoyance  that  they  left  one  too  fatigued  to  write 
them  out,  except  in  a  fragmentary  way  that  could  not 
catch  or  retain  their  flavour,  so  that  their  interest  oft- 
times  evaporated  over  night.  There  were  incidents  that 
seem  casual  enough  in  the  retrospect  and  wholly  unre- 
lated, though  they  were  all  related  to  the  colossal  trag- 
edy that  had  overwhelmed  the  world.  They  were  often 
mere  beginnings  of  smaller  tragedies,  and  I  did  not  al- 
ways know  their  denouements;  the  thread  of  them  got 
lost  in  the  amazing  skein  in  which  all  events  were  tan- 
gled. 

I  find,  for  instance,  under  the  date  of  the  seventh  of 
September,  that  as  I  came  downstairs  there  arose  from  a 
chair  in  the  hall  a  man  who  made  a  very  solemn  military 
bow,  a  rather  forlorn  Belgian  in  a  blue  coat  with  its 

284 


THE  PLIGHT  OF  THE  BARON 

double  row  of  globular  brass  buttons,  the  light  blue 
breeches  and  the  little  bonnet  de  police  that  proclaimed 
him  an  officer  of  the  Belgian  Lancers. 

In  the  hall,  likewise,  was  a  young  German  officer  in 
a  grey  uniform,  with  an  enormous  cartridge-belt  terri- 
bly filled  with  cartridges,  and  in  its  holster  a  small  re- 
volver— rather  inadequate,  it  seemed  to  me,  for  all  the 
desperate  deeds  those  cartridges  portended.  This  Ger- 
man was  Dr.  Georg  Berghausen,  a  somewhat  too  affa- 
ble young  man,  the  medical  officer  who  has  already  ap- 
peared on  the  lurid  scene  of  Louvain.  When  I  asked 
him  to  enter  my  room  he  said  he  had  come  to  arrange  an 
exchange  of  prisoners.  Then  he  thrust  his  head  out  the 
door  and  called  loudly  "Mon  camarader  and  the  Bel- 
gian came  in  and  was  introduced  as  Baron  de  Menten, 
whom,  Berghausen  said  he  should  like  to  exchange  for 
a  certain  German  officer,  then  a  prisoner  in  Antwerp. 

The  German,  with  a  gesture  that  bespoke  the  most 
generous  and  flattering  confidence  in  my  integrity,  then 
withdrew  and  left  me  with  the  Belgian,  who  told  me  his 
story.  Near  Louvain  he  had  been  sent  out  to  make  a 
reconnaissance  but  was  cut  off  and  found  himself  with 
only  a  non-commissioned  officer  and  a  trumpeter,  sur- 
rounded by  two  hundred  Germans;  the  non-commis- 
sioned officer  was  killed  but  the  Baron  and  the  trumpeter 
crawled  away  on  their  hands  and  knees  and  hid  in  a  field 
of  asparagus.  Lying  there  in  the  soft  feathery  bushes 
of  asparagus,  de  Menten  and  the  trumpeter  saw,  not 
far  off,  a  peasant,  who  held  up  two  fingers  and  then 
pointed  to  the  place  where  they  were  hiding,  and  they 
knew  that  their  position  had  been  betrayed  to  the  Ger- 
man soldiers.  Thus  they  were  made  prisoners  and  taken 
to  the  Chateau  of  Steenbeck,  the  residence  of  M.  Mau- 

285 


BELGIUM 

rice  Despret,  which  had  been  taken  by  the  Germans, 
and  there  de  Menten  had  been  confined  in  a  small  room 
guarded  by  two  sentinels.  Then  Berghausen  had  ap- 
peared and  brought  him  to  Brussels,  to  be  exchanged, 
as  he  was  told.  I  was  touched  by  his  plight  and  wished 
to  help  him,  but  a  transfer  of  prisoners  seemed  to  me  to 
be  a  military  matter  with  which  I  should  not  be  con- 
cerned. 

I  heard  no  more  of  the  officer  in  the  Lancers  for  four 
days,  and  then  another  German  officer  asked  me  if  I 
could  not  arrange  an  exchange  for  him;  he  wished  me 
to  write  a  letter  which  de  Menten  could  bear  to  Ant- 
werp— a  journey  which,  he  said,  the  German  authori- 
ties would  be  glad  to  facilitate  for  him.  Such  solicitude 
for  prisoners  was  not  usual  with  the  Germans,  and  I 
began  to  have  certain  suspicions,  unworthy  no  doubt, 
though  not  of  the  Baron.  I  had  looked  at  him  and  that 
was  enough;  what  I  had  seen  was  good.  Two  days 
passed  and  Berghausen  came  again,  most  affable  and 
delighted  with  the  new  Iron  Cross  he  was  wearing;  he 
touched  its  black  and  white  ribbon  with  pride,  and  rev- 
erently said,  "Mon  Empereur  me  Va  donnee."  I  con- 
gratulated him,  of  course,  though  it  seemed  to  me  that 
the  action,  however  well  intentioned,  had  deprived  him 
of  the  distinction  he  had  had  of  being  the  only  German 
officer  ever  seen  in  Brussels  who  did  not  wear  that  deco- 
ration. He  wished  me  to  write  a  letter  to  the  Belgian 
Government  which  de  Menten  was  to  take  to  Antwerp 
— a  letter  setting  forth  the  facts  in  the  affair  as  I  un- 
derstood them — and  he  argued  so  long  and  so  earnestly 
that  I  decided  not  to  do  so.  He  went  away  then,  and 
soon  after  came  de  Menten  himself  and  said  that  he  had 
already  been  to  Antwerp,  that  Berghausen  had  con- 

286 


THE  PLIGHT  OF  THE  BARON 

ducted  him  through  the  lines,  and  that  at  Antwerp  he 
had  been  taken  before  the  whole  staiF,  in  the  presence 
of  the  American  Consul,  and  there  had  been  severely 
rebuked  by  his  General  for  having  come  through  the 
lines  at  all.  The  General  then  ordered  him  to  be  blind- 
folded and  returned  as  a  prisoner  within  the  German 
lines.  I  felt  a  great  pity  for  the  man;  his  distress  was 
so  evident,  but  there  seemed  to  be  nothing  that  I  could 
do  to  aid  him.  In  the  afternoon  he  returned,  in  bour- 
geois this  time,  and,  speaking  of  the  suspicions  his  own 
brother  officers  must  have  of  him  he  said  that  nothing 
remained  for  him  to  do  but  to  go  back  to  the  army  and 
to  prove  his  loyalty  by  being  shot;  even  though  I  were 
to  write  the  letter,  he  said,  he  would  not  carry  it  to  Ant- 
werp. He  sat  there  in  the  discomfort  of  a  soldier  out  of 
uniform  in  time  of  war,  and  while  I. was  wondering  what 
I  might  say  to  hghten  the  load  he  bore,  Berghausen 
appeared,  and  standing  before  us  said,  in  a  formal, 
proclamatory  way: 

'T  declare  that  the  Baron  de  Menten,  Captain  of  Lan- 
cers, is  now  at  liberty!" 

He  asked  me  if  I  would  certify  to  the  fact,  and  I  said 
of  course  I  should  be  willing  to  certify  to  the  fact  that 
he  had  made  such  a  declaration  in  my  presence. 

Berghausen  left  then,  and  soon  thereafter  de  Menten 
went  away.    I  did  not  see  him  again. 

I  could  not  follow  in  all  their  sequences  and  to  their 
denouements  all  of  the  incidents  that  were  so  constantly 
coming  up  in  our  experiences ;  they  happened  as  things 
happen  in  life  and  not  in  books,  in  that  casual,  detached 
and  unrelated  way  in  which  life  weaves  its  mysterious 
romance,  without  the  regard  for  the  unity  that  enslaves 
conscious  art — largely  because  I  suppose,  the  plot  of  life 

287 


BELGIUM 

is  of  so  vast  a  scope  that  our  vision  is  not  broad  enough 
to  embrace  it.  In  romances  the  war  is  an  incident  in 
the  Hfe  of  the  individual;  in  life  itself  the  individual  is 
but  an  incident,  and  a  most  insignificant  and  pitiable 
incident  of  the  war,  or  whatever  the  calamity  may  be. 
Indeed  difficulties  came  so  swiftly  one  on  the  other 
that  there  was  not  always  time  to  follow  them  to  their 
end.  If  it  was  not  a  woman  in  trouble,  there  seemed  to 
be  always  a  British  Red  Cross  ambulance  to  be  con- 
cerned about.  No  sooner  had  the  Duchess  of  Suther- 
land been  released  than  three  young  Englishmen,  be- 
longing to  the  ambulance  then  serving  at  the  railway 
station  at  Schaerbeek,  disappeared.  We  found  them 
eventually  where  most  of  those  who  disappeared  during 
all  the  time  in  Belgium  were  to  be  found — at  the  Kom- 
mandantur.  The  three  young  men,  of  course  were 
charged  with  spying.  The  Red  Cross  ambulance  had 
remained  in  Brussels  and  had  nursed  German  wounded, 
under  the  assurance  that  they  would  be  respected  in  ac- 
cordance with  The  Hague  Conventions.  The  phrase, 
however,  was  beginning  to  lose  some  of  its  magic,  and 
when  the  three  were  arrested,  I  tried  to  arrange  not  only 
for  their  release  but  for  their  departure  by  way  of  Hol- 
land. The  German  physician  who  was  then  at  the  head 
of  the  Red  Cross,  a  Dr.  Sturtz,  wished  to  send  them  to 
Liege;  when  objection  was  made — Liege  being  more 
directly  in  the  route  to  Germany  than  to  Holland — the 
Doctor  produced  a  paper  written  in  German  and  signed 
by  Dr.  Wyatt,  the  young  Englishman  at  the  head  of 
the  ambulance,  in  which  Wyatt  expressed  his  willing- 
ness to  go  to  Liege ;  Dr.  Sturtz  insisted  on  this.  Wyatt 
was  young  and  in  a  difficult  position;  he  could  not  read 
German  and  not  only  had  he  not  known  what  he  was 

288 


THE  PLIGHT  OF  THE  BARON 

signing,  but  he  had  signed  it  under  threats  of  the  Ger- 
mans. I  pointed  all  this  out  to  the  authorities,  and 
argued  that  it  was  not  only  unfair,  but  in  most  countries 
illegal  to  hold  a  man  to  a  signature  obtained  under 
duress.  The  point  escaped  the  German  mind,  and  for 
the  time  I  could  obtain  no  decision. 

The  Germans,  indeed,  had  a  policy,  not  unpractical 
one  must  admit — of  preferring  to  discuss  the  shortcom- 
ings of  others  rather  than  their  own.  When  I  went  to 
see  them  they  always  introduced  some  other  disagree- 
able topic  before  I  could  selfishly  mention  my  own ;  they 
always  had  some  complaint  at  hand,  usually  about  an 
American  or  one  of  our  English  proteges. 

At  that  moment  it  was  the  visit  of  the  secretaries  of 
Legation  to  Louvain  they  preferred  to  discuss.  They 
were  beginning  to  feel  the  reaction  from  that  monstrous 
horror,  though  they  were  slow  to  realize  it  as  a  monstrous 
horror  themselves.  One  young  officer  then  temporarily 
in  Brussels,  remarked  to  me  that  the  affair  was  not  of 
great  importance,  and  that  he  failed  to  see  why  so  much 
ado  was  being  made  about  it.  "After  all,"  he  said,  "noth- 
ing of  great  value  was  destroyed."  I  spoke  of  the  li- 
brary— I  had  always  the  vision  of  the  old  priest  burst- 
ing into  sobs  as  he  tried  to  articulate  the  word  "hihli- 
otheque" — but  he  said  that  there  was  little  of  real  im- 
portance in  that. 

I  do  not  mean  to  write  unkindly  about  that  officer ;  he 
was  in  reality  not  bad  at  heart,  but  always  ready  and 
even  anxious  to  do  favours  and  little  helpful  deeds.  He 
had  come  to  see  me  in  an  effort  to  get  Gibson  and  Pou- 
sette  and  Bulle  to  testify  that  they  had  seen  civilians  fir- 
ing at  Louvain.    Several  other  officers  called  on  the  same 

mission,  among  them  von  S ,  who  in  civil  life  was  a 

289 


BELGIUM 

banker,  and  he  was  so  much  a  civilian  always  that  even 
his  uniform  did  not  militarize  him.  He  was  a  man  of 
education,  and  he  felt  the  stigma  that  the  Louvain  atroc- 
ity had  indelibly  placed  on  his  land.  The  younger  mili- 
tary men  among  them  did  not  have  much  concern  about 
it;  they  were  forgetting  it  and  sweeping  on  to  others 
like  it.  As  Talleyrand  said,  "on  pent  militariser  un  civil, 
mais  on  ne  pent  pas  civiliser  wn  militaire/' 

I  had  not  the  slightest  intention,  as  I  have  already 
intimated  in  the  account  given  of  the  sack  of  Louvain, 
of  helping  to  adduce  any  such  evidence  as  the  German 
authorities  were  evidently  seeking,  and  when  I  told  them 
that  in  any  event  I  should  have  to  ask  instructions  of 
the  Government  at  Washington,  and  von  der  Lancken, 
with  his  knowledge  of  the  ways  of  diplomatists,  trained 
and  untrained,  remarked  that  in  making  the  request  I 
would  probably  so  word  it  as  to  suggest  the  answer  de- 
sired. I  should  not  wonder  if  he  were  correct  in  that 
suspicion;  at  any  rate,  the  testimony  was  not  forth- 
coming. 

And  yet,  not  all  of  the  visits  we  received  were  so  pro- 
lific in  difficulties.  When  they  had  not  to  do  with  sonie 
flagrant  and  exasperating  injustice  or  some  revolting 
cruelty,  they  might  be  of  that  minor  quality  that  was 
amusing  in  a  cynical  way.  A  typical  instance  was  that 
recounted  to  me  by  an  American  lady  who  conducted  a 
fashionable  school  for  girls  in  Brussels,  and  came  in 
alarm*  one  day  to  ask  my  advice  and  protection.  One 
morning  in  September  two  young  G^erman  officers  had 
appeared  at  the  pensionnat  and  asked  if  Fraulein  Olga 
von  somebody  was  there.  She  had  been  there  as  a 
student,  but  had  not  returned  that  year.  Then  they  de- 
manded her  photograph,  which  the  preceptress,  very 

290 


THE  PLIG^T  OF  THE  BARON 

much  perplexed  and  deeply  troubled,  refused.  The  offi- 
cers insisted,  forced  her  to  find  and  produce  a  picture 
of  Olga — and  the  young  officer  snatched  from  her  hand, 
tore  into  bits,  threw  the  pieces  in  the  lady's  face,  and 
stamped  out  of  the  house. 

Some  Frenchman — Talleyrand,  I  suppose,  since  all 
the  witty  French  sayings  of  the  last  century  are  at- 
tributed to  him — has  said  of  some  deed  that  had  been 
referred  to  as  a  crime:  "It  is  worse  than  a  crime,  it  is 
an  indelicacy."  Thus  we  had  the  story  of  a  certain 
chatelaine  near  Brussels  who  tried  to  be  polite  to  the 
German  General  who  had  quartered  himself  and  his 
Staff  in  her  chateau;  thinking  to  make  the  best  of  it, 
she  asked  the  General: 

"At  what  time  will  you  have  dinner?" 

"Never  mind  about  that,"  he  said,  "I  have  already 
given  orders." 

And  its  pendant,  that  of  the  gouvernante  in  a  chateau 
in  the  Ardennes  where  German  officers  were  quartered. 
One  morning  an  officer  drew  his  revolver  and  said  to 
the  gouvernante: 

"I  have  a  notion  to  shoot  you." 

"Why?"  she  asked. 

"Oh,  simply  because  I  feel  like  shooting  some  one 
to-day." 

Then  she  replied  calmly: 

"Why  don't  you  shoot  yourself?" 


XLII 

BRICKS  WITHOUT  STRAW 

We  had  been  dining  out  one  evening,  for  life  went  on 
somehow,  even  if  it  did  have  a  curious  effect  of  having 
been  suspended,  though  dining  out  was  not  without  its 
adventures;  people  were  occasionally  arrested  on  their 
way  home  and  taken  to  the  Kommandantur.  The  very 
word  came  to  have  terrible  connotations  in  Brussels,  and 
indeed  all  over  Belgium  and  the  north  of  France,  like 
so  many  typical  words  that  begin  with  that  ugly  letter 
K — Krieg,  Kaiser,  Krupp,  Kultur,  Kolossal,  Kom- 
mandantur. Sometimes  one's  cook  or  the  cook  of  one's 
host  would  be  arrested  at  the  last  minute,  and  that  was 
even  worse  than  if  one  of  the  guests  had  been  arrested. 
On  the  evening  of  which  I  specifically  write,  however, 
we  had  not  been  subject  to  such  accidents,  and  had  re- 
turned home  with  somewhat  more  normal  sensations, 
when  I  found  awaiting  me  in  my  cabinet  a  gentleman 
who  was  so  drenched  with  rain,  so  evidently  weary,  that 
he  presented  a  pitiable  sight.  He  was  the  Baron  de 
Roest  d'Alkemaede,  and  he  came  with  a  sad  story  of 
the  requisitioning  of  all  the  horses  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  Hal.  The  farmers  there — those  who  farmed  on  a 
large  scale  and  those  who  raised  on  little  patches  the 
produce  that  was  used  on  Brussels  tables — had  already 
so  suffered  from  the  seizure  of  their  horses  that  many 
of  them  had  only  one  left;  if  these  were  to  be  taken 
agriculture  there  would  cease.  In  addition  to  all  this, 
and  what  was  even  more  important,  they  raised  there 
those  magnificent   Braban^on  horses,   and  if   all  the 

292 


BRICKS  WITHOUT  STRAW 

stallions  and  brood  mares  were  to  be  requisitioned  the 
noble  race  would  be  annihilated.  The  Baron  in  sorrow 
told  me  of  this  great  fear  of  his  neighbours ;  he  had  come 
to  implore  American  aid,  and  he  spoke  too  of  other 
calamities  that  had  befallen  his  beautiful  land,  somehow 
summed  up  in  the  phrase  current  among  the  German 
soldiers:  "Paris,  champagne,  and  the  women  of  France." 
What  could  I  do? 

I  went  to  bed  depressed ;  it  was  the  old  task  of  which 
so  much  of  life  is  made — that  of  making  bricks  without 
straw.  In  the  morning,  going  to  von  der  Lancken  with 
an  accumulation  of  other  troubles  to  discuss,  among 
them  the  ever-present  subject  of  Gibson's  testimony  as 
to  the  Louvain  incident,  I  touched  unofficially  the  ques- 
tion of  the  requisitioning  of  the  horses  at  Hal,  and  he 
was  sympathetic  and  reasonable  and  agreed  to  do  what 
he  could.  I  took  him  in  my  car  and  we  drove  to  the  old 
foreign  office,  and  found  an  officer  of  the  Death  Head 
Hussars,  who  seemed  to  be  the  chief  of  the  horse-steal- 
ing department,  and  there  standing  in  the  middle  of  the 
street,  with  soldiers  saluting  on  every  hand,  we  ex- 
plained the  matter  to  him,  reminding  him  that  those 
heavy  Braban9on  draught-stallions  could  not  walk  ten 
kilometers  in  a  whole  day  and  would  be  utterly  useless 
to  an  army — so  that  he  promised  to  leave  the  poor  folk 
down  at  Hal  as  many  of  their  horses  as  he  could.  Then 
with  many  salutes  we  parted  and  I  came  back  happy  to 
be  able  to  inform  the  Baron  de  Roest  I'Alkemaede,  who 
was  waiting  for  me  with  a  delegation  of  breeders  who 
had  come  to  Brussels  that  day  on  the  same  errand,  of 
the  success  of  my  efforts.^ 

^  However,  the  horses,  ultimately,  were  taken. 

293 


BELGIUM 

Von  der  Lancken  had  told  me  that  as  a  result  of  my 
two  demarches  and  my  letter  of  protest,  the  decision  to 
send  the  British  Red  Cross  to  Liege  had  been  reversed 
and  that  it  had  been  decided  to  send  the  nurses — ^more 
than  one  hundred — including  the  doctors,  to  England. 

Then  Japanese  interests  were  confided  to  me,  Japan 
having  gone  to  war  with  Germany,  and  I  hoisted  my 
flag  over  the  Japanese  Legation  in  the  Rue  de  la  Loi. 
There  were  very  few  Japanese  residents  in  Brussels 
and  only  three  in  the  Legation^  and  those  could  not 
leave  by  Antwerp  for  all  the  country  between  Antwerp 
and  Brussels  was  then  one  vast  battlefield,  and  it  was 
agreed  with  the  Germans  that  the  Charge  and  his  little 
colony  should  remain  quietly  in  the  city. 


XLIII 

RUINED  LOUVAIN 

One  might  have  the  illusion  that  there  was  no  war 
in  the  world — the  country-side  was  so  beautiful,  the  fields 
so  sweet,  so  lovely,  spreading  out  on  either  hand,  with 
men  and  women  working  in  them  and  peasants  peace- 
fully plowing — had  it  not  been  that  now  and  then  one 
met  army  wagons,  with  cavalry  escorts,  or  sentinels  who 
demanded  the  passierscheins  that  had  become  one  of  the 
fundamentally  important  elements  in  life.  Occasion- 
ally one  met  the  great  vans  that  had  replaced  the  rail- 
ways, filled  with  people  talking  and  gossiping,  exchang- 
ing their  experiences — somehow  recalling  Mr.  Thomas 
Hardy's  stories  of  the  vans  that  used  to  lumber  through 
old  Wessex,  with  their  tragic  or  comic  histories.  All 
these  were  tragic,  doubtless,  though  the  faces  were  not 
tragic;  indeed,  it  is  strange  with  what  sang-froid  the 
people  endured  the  misery  of  those  times.  There  were, 
of  course,  the  rude  marks  of  the  war  in  the  ruins  of 
houses  by  the  roadside,  or  far  off^  across  the  fields,  or  in 
some  lovely  and  abandoned  chateau  at  the  end  of  its 
long  avenue,  its  white  facade  blackened  and  spattered 
by  bullets. 

The  narrow  twisting  streets  of  Louvain,  for  instance, 
had  ruins  on  every  side,  as  though  an  earthquake  had 
shaken  down  the  houses  and  fire  had  consumed  them  all ; 
within  they  were  burnt  black,  in  some  places  the  walls 
about  to  fall.  But  at  the  American  College,  with  its 
old  wall  and  its  linden-trees,  the  old  garden  with  its 

295 


BELGIUM 

terraces  where  strawberries  were  still  ripening  in  the 
late  September  sun,  there  was  a  peace  almost  classic, 
untouched  by  the  fury  that  had  swept  away  so  much  of 
the  town. 

A  strange  silence  indeed  filled  the  whole  city;  amid 
the  ruins  that  cumbered  the  streets,  the  people  stood 
about,  idle  and  curious,  with  sad,  solemn  faces,  and  as 
our  motor  passed  they  uncovered  in  mute  salute  of  the 
flag  that  had  somehow  come  to  express  for  them  what 
had  been  expressed  by  their  own,  which  they  might  no 
longer  fly. 

The  Hotel  de  Ville  was  intact,  and  workmen  mounted 
on  a  scaff'olding  were  cleaning  the  stains  from  its  Gothic 
fa9ade.  Across  the  street  the  ruins  of  the  cathedral 
stood,  the  lofty  nave  and  transept  blackened  and  charred 
and  filled  with  rubbish,  and  the  sunlight  pouring 
through  the  great  windows  from  which  the  stained  glass 
was  broken,  and  through  the  wide  aperture  in  the  roof 
through  which  the  great  bell  had  fallen  when  the  tower 
gave  way.  The  doors  had  been  battered  in,  the  marks 
of  the  axes  were  there  on  lock  and  panel,  and  within  on 
every  door  even  in  the  coffers  where  the  treasures  of 
the  old  pile  had  been  kept,  the  marks  of  like  blows  were 
visible;  and  every  one  of  the  side  chapels  had  been  de- 
liberately burned  out,  for  the  thick  walls  between  them, 
still  standing,  had  resisted  the  flames.  And  {hough 
nearly  a  month  had  passed,  the  sack  of  the  city  was  still 
going  steadily  on,  though  in  a  more  orderly  and  organ- 
ized manner,  for  soldiers  were  bearing  forth  from  the 
houses  great  baskets  of  wine. 


XLIV 

OUR  DAILY  BREAD 

When  we  got  home  that  September  evening  from 
Louvain,  Gibson  and  de  Leval  were  waiting  for  me 
to  say  that  during  my  absence  word  had  come  that  there 
was  at  last  no  more  flour  in  Brussels.  The  situation  as 
regards  food  had  gi'own  more  and  more  desperate,  and 
now  it  had  come  to  be  acute.  It  was  not  a  surprise ;  ten 
days  before  we  had  made  the  first  eiFort  to  meet  the 
situation  that  was  now  upon  us.  Mr.  Daniel  Heineman, 
the  American  who  had  so  efficiently  organized  the  relief 
for  the  stranded  Americans,  had  been  in  to  confer  with 
me  and,  on  the  twelfth  of  September,  to  be  exact — since 
the  date  is  not  without  its  interest — he  and  Mr.  Millard 
K.  Shaler,  an  American  engineer  resident  in  Brussels, 
had  gone  to  see  certain  men  in  the  German  administra- 
tion to  discuss  possible  means  of  providing  food.  A  sim- 
ple fact  will  express  the  whole  difficulty  of  the  situation. 
In  normal  times  of  peace  Belgium  must  import  from 
four-fifths  to  five-sixths  of  her  total  food-supply;  the 
most  densely  populated,  the  most  intensely  cultivated 
country  in  the  world,  this  was  the  best  she  could  do.  Now, 
ravaged  by  war,  with  crops  ungathered  and  industry 
dead,  the  need  was  even  greater,  and  the  ports  of  entry 
were  closed  by  England  on  the  seas.  We  had  heard, 
however,  that  there  were  certain  stores  of  wheat  in  Ant- 
werp, belonging  to  the  Belgian  Government,  and  Da- 
vignon,  the  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs,  had  contrived 
to  get  a  letter  through  to  me  saying  that  the  wheat,  or 

297 


BELGIUM 

a  part  of  it,  would  be  sent  through  to  Brussels  if  we 
could  contrive  the  means.  The  excellent  Heineman  had 
been  busily  at  work,  and  he  assured  us  that  the  Pasha 
would  consent  to  its  coming  in.  Heineman,  indeed, 
could  work  marvels.  He  had  large  financial  interests 
in  several  countries,  Germany  among  them ;  he  could 
speak  German,  and  he  could  be  addressed  as  a  Herr 
Doktor  himself,  if  necessary,  since  he  had  a  degree  of 
Ph.D.  from  a  German  university.  He  was  a  member 
of  the  Comite  Central  I'Alimentation  et  Secours,  and 
he  had  worked  untiringly  to  aid  in  that  great  work  of 
charity. 

There  may  have  been  in  Brussels  men  in  and  out  of 
that  committee  who  suspected  what  a  task  it  would  be 
to  feed  Belgium,  but  I  doubt  if  any  one  fully  realized 
it,  I  am  sure  that  I  did  not.  In  my  house  breakfast  was 
brought  up  punctually,  luncheon  and  tea  and  dinner 
were  announced  at  the  usual  hours;  that  was  the  least 
of  my  concerns.  I  had  never  known  what  it  was  to  be 
hungry  in  all  my  life — or  perhaps  I  would  better  say, 
never  known  what  it  was  to  go  hungry;  the  appetite  of 
the  golf-links,  of  course,  was  but  one  of  the  many  pleas- 
ures of  the  experience,  and  there  was  a  waiting  table  in 
the  country  club.  The  words  of  the  prayer,  "Give  us 
this  day  our  daily  bread,"  had  never  had  for  me,  I  fear, 
any  other  than  a  poetic  meaning.  My  own  attitude  to- 
ward food  was  as  insouciant  as  that  of  a  lap-dog,  for 
whom  nourishment  is  provided,  though  it  was  not  as 
gracious  or  as  grateful  as  that  of  a  lap-dog,  since  I  often 
grumbled  if  it  were  not  prepared  to  a  somewhat  fastid- 
ious taste.  I  speak  of  my  own  attitude  in  this  respect 
as  a  confession  and  as  an  illustration  too,  since  it  was 
the  attitude  of  nearly  every  one  that  I  knew,  on  both 

298 


OUR  DAILY  BREAD 

sides  of  the  Atlantic.  The  war  was  soon  to  bring  us 
face  to  face  with  great  elementary  facts  of  human  ex- 
istence; we  were,  as  Kitchener  said,  to  taste  the  salt  of 
life.  The  old  prayer  was  to  acquire  significance,  it  was 
to  become  the  principal  concern  of  each  moment,  not 
only  for  us,  but  vicariously  for  seven  millions,  and  ulti- 
mately for  ten  millions  of  people.  So  that  now  I  never 
see  any  one  idly  crumbling  bread  at  dinner  without  a 
shock. 

But  we  had  no  notion  then,  and  well  it  was  that  we 
had  not;  if  we  had  had,  we  never  could  have  accom- 
plished what  we  did — the  monstrous  task  would  have 
appalled  us.  Just  then  that  autumn  evening  it  meant 
merely  that  there  were  certain  stores  of  wheat  in  Ant- 
werp ;  there  were  armies  between  us  and  Antwerp,  but 
if  we  could  get  the  wheat  through  all  would  go  well — 
for  those  anonymous  poor  who  were  hungry.  As  for 
our  being  hungry,  the  thought  was  inconceivable  I  I 
went,  then  at  once,  that  evening  to  see  von  der  Lancken ; 
the  question  was,  how  to  communicate  with  the  Belgian 
Government  in  the  beleaguered  city.  Sitting  there  in 
that  apartment  in  the  Ministere  de  I'Agriculture,  we 
talked  across  his  great  table.  This  question,  as  I  say, 
was  to  communicate  with  Antwerp. 

"It  is  simple,"  said  Lancken. 

'•'How?" 

"Max  can  communicate  with  Antwerp,"  he  replied 
quietly. 

"How?"  I  repeated. 

There  was  a  shrug  of  the  shotilders  in  the  gilt  epau- 
lettes, and  the  trace  of  a  meaning  smile.  .  .  .  But  such 
a  request  to  Max  ?   No,  not  that.   Max's  means  of  com- 

299 


BELGIUM 

munication  were,  then,  the  important  thing!  And  I  came 
away. 

I  saw  von  der  Lancken  the  next  morning;  he  still 
thought  that  I  should  ask  Max  to  communicate;  there 
were  rumours  of  a  secret  telephone  of  some  sort.  But  I 
refused  to  ask  Max.  The  next  afternoon  I  suggested, 
that  inasmuch  as  we  seemed  unable  to  agree  on  Max,  we 
compromise  on  Gibson  and  send  him  to  Antwerp — ^he 
knew  the  way;  and  during  several  days  the  Baron  and  I 
tossed  the  two  names  back  and  forth  with  the  most  ami- 
able persistence,  and  finally  he  agreed  to  Gibson's  going. 
The  journey  as  planned  this  time  was  not  dangerous; 
the  German  army  was  investing  Antwerp  too  closely 
and  the  battle  was  raging  too  fiercely  for  him  to  go 
directly;  he  would  have  to  turn,  as  it  were,  the  German 
right  flank  from  the  rear — a  thing  that  your  military 
man  would  say  could  not  be  done — that  is,  go  around 
by  Maestricht  into  Holland  and  enter  Antwerp  from 
the  north.  And  as  he  was  going  this  way,  my  wife  and 
I  decided  that  it  was  best  to  take  advantage  of  the  op- 
portunity and  send  out  our  two  mothers  with  him.  We 
had  been  concerned  about  them;  there  was  too  much 
danger  in  the  air;  no  one  ever  knew.  The  recollection 
of  the  mother  of  Madame  Poullet,  who,  at  eighty  years 
of  age,  had  walked  at  night  all  the  way  from  Louvain 
into  Brussels,  was  ever  present  and  too  suggestive,  and 
there  were  always  those  horrid  tales  of  what  happened 
whenever  the  Germans  were  checked  anywhere — for 
Belgium  not  only  suffered  from  German  victories  but 
paid  the  penalty  of  Allied  victories  too.  We  would  be 
easier  with  the  dear  old  ladies  away,  sad  as  we  were  to 
see  them  go.  They  had  been  so  fine,  so  brave,  never  a 
word  of  fear,  playing  cards  in  their  rooms,  keeping 

300 


OUR  DAILY  BREAD 

away  from  the  windows  lest  the  Gare  du  Luxembourg, 
half  a  block  away,  should  be  blown  up  by  bombs  from 
some  air  craft  and  the  pieces  fly  that  way,  taking  their 
walks  and  drives — and  like  the  Germans,  disappointed 
of  their  trip  to  Paris.  * 

And  so  it  was  agreed  that  Gibson  should  go  with 
them  in  the  motor  to  The  Hague  and  leave  them  there 
while  he  went  to  Antwerp  to  arrange  for  sending 
through  the  wheat,  then  rejoin  them  and  escort  them  to 
London.    We  asked  for  the  passierscheins. 


XLV 

THE  ARREST  OF  THE  BURGOMASTER 

While  we  were  engaging  in  the  first  negotiations 
for  the  revictualing  of  Belgium  another  curious  and 
complicated  series  of  events  were  mounting  to  the  climax 
that  had  been  inevitable  from  the  beginning;  the  duel 
df  esprit  between  the  Burgomaster  and  the  Germans  was 
rapidly  approaching  an  acute  phase.  When  M.  Max's 
affiche  asking  his  "Chers  Citoyens''  to  make  one  further 
sacrifice,  to  take  down  their  flags  and  to  await  the  hour 
of  reparation,  was  covered  that  night  with  white  paper 
by  the  military  authorities,  this  did  not  close  the  inci- 
dent, for  M.  Max  was  arrested  by  the  German  author- 
ities. The  Commandant  of  the  Place,  Major  Bayer,  had 
appeared  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville  with  four  German 
soldiers  and  informed  him  that  he  was  under  arrest. 

''Je  m'incline''  the  Burgomaster  replied ;  and  so  went 
en  galant  homme  to  be  informed  that  he  was  a  prisoner 
and  would  be  sent  to  Germany. 

M.  Max  bowed.    He  said: 

"I  regret,  of  course,  that  I  cannot  continue  to  dis- 
charge my  duties  to  the  end,  but  I  must  submit.  How- 
ever, I  have  the  satisfaction  of  having  done  my  duty. 
You  told  me  at  the  beginning  that  you  wished  to  avoid 
trouble  and  difficulty  in  Brussels ;  I  know  the  temper  of 
my  people  better  than  you  do,  and  if  I  had  not  inter- 
posed myself  between  you  and  the  population  of  Brus- 
sels we  should  have  had  bloodshed  here.  Therefore  I 
cannot  regret  having  done  what  I  did.    I  am  glad  too 

302 


THE  ARREST  OF  THE  BURGOMASTER 

that  up  to  this  time,  when  my  authority  ends,  we  have 
had  peace  here.  Now  that  you  have  made  me  prisoner, 
I  find  a  certain  relief  in  the  fact  that  I  shall  not  be 
responsible  for  what  occurs  hereafter." 

General  von  Liittwitz  started;  he  had  not  foreseen 
such  a  result.  He  said,  "Wait  a  minute,"  and  went  away. 
At  the  end  of  a  quarter  of  an  hour  he  came  back,  hav- 
ing seen  the  Pasha ;  he  extended  his  hand  to  the  Burgo- 
master and  said: 

"You  are  free." 

The  story  got  abroad;  M.  Max  expressed  the  resist- 
ance of  the  proud  old  city;  people  could  liken  him  to 
St.  Michel,  the  city's  patron  saint,  with  the  dragon  beat 
down  under  his  feet,  just  as  he  stands  forever  on  the 
tower  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville.  The  town  burst  suddenly 
forth  into  admiration ;  everywhere  there  were  little  plas- 
ter busts  and  pictures  of  the  Burgomaster,  growing  very 
popular — too  popular,  I  feared,  in  my  walks  through  the 
charming  old  streets  that  twisted  about  in  the  lower 
town;  for  to  an  old  head  used  to  politics,  which  are 
everywhere  the  world  over  the  same  in  essence,  this 
phenomenon  had  a  meaning  and  a  danger  too  apparent. 

On  the  afternoon  of  the  twenty-sixth  of  September, 
going  from  the  book-stalls — quite  deserted  then — in  the 
Galerie  Borthier  to  the  Galeries  St.-Hubert,  where  there 
were  more  life  and  movement,  I  saw,  in  the  Rue  de 
I'Ecuyer,  a  new  affiche,  and  stopped  to  read  it: 

Publication 
Le  gouvernement  allemand  avait  ordonne  le  paiement  des  bons 
de  requisitions,  supposant  a  bon  droit  que  la  ville  aurait  paye  volon- 
tairement  I'entierete  de  la  contribution  de  guerre  qui  lui  avait  ete 
imposee. 

Ce  n'est  qu'a  cette  condition  que  le  traitement  de  faveur  peut 

303 


BELGIUM 

etre  justifie  dont  la  ville  de  Bruxelles  a  joui,  a  la  difference  do 
toutes  les  autres  villes  de  la  Belgique,  lesquelles  ne  verront  les  bons 
de  requisition  rembourses  qu'  apres  la  conclusion  de  la  paix, 

Etant  donne  que  Tadministration  communale  de  Bruxelles  refuse 
le  versement  du  restant  de  la  contribution  de  guerre,  aucun  bon  de 
requisition  ne  sera  plus  paye  a  partir  de  ce  jour  par  la  caisse 
gouvernementale. 

Bruxelles,  le  24  septembre,   1914. 

Le  gouverneur  militaire. 
Baron  von  Luttwitz, 

General-major.  ^ 

The  announcement  bore  an  immense  significance 
which  was  not,  perhaps,  instantly  realized  by  the  small 
group  that  so  idly  perused  it.  The  people  did  not,  I 
fancied — all  of  them  at  least — feel  its  dark  presentment 
of  impending  evil.     I  hastened  home  to  the  Legation. 

On  the  twenty-fourth  of  August  Burgomaster  Max 
and  General  von  Jarotsky  had  had  pourparlers  as  to  the 
fifty  millions  of  francs  which  the  Germans  had  demanded 
from  the  city.    M.  Max  had  declared,  as  he  had  told  von 

^  Publication 
The  German  Government  ordered  the  payment  of  hons  de  requiir 
sition,  having  good  reason  to  suppose  that  the  city  would  volun- 
tarily pay  the  whole  of  the  war  contribution  that  had  been  imposed 
upon  it.  It  was  only  on  that  condition  that  the  exceptional  treat- 
ment which  the  city  of  Brussels  had  enjoyed  could  be  justified,  in 
contradistinction  from  all  the  other  cities  in  Belgium  in  which  the 
bons  de  requisition  would  not  be  paid  until  after  the  conclusion  of 
peace.  Now  that  the  city  administration  of  Brussels  refuses  to  turn 
over  the  balance  of  the  war  contribution,  from  this  day  forward  no 
bons  de  requisition  will  be  paid  by  the  government  treasury. 
Brussels,  24  Septembre,  1914. 

The  Governor, 
Baron  von  Luttwitz, 

Major  General. 

304 


THE  ARREST  OF  THE  BURGOMASTER 

Jarotsky  in  the  presence  of  Villalobar  and  me,  that  he 
could  not  procure  the  entire  sum.  However,  he  agreed 
to  try  to  procure  a  milHon  and  a  half,  and  within  eight 
days  following  eighteen  millions  and  a  half;  and  he  tried 
to  induce  von  Jarotsky  to  reduce  the  sum  demanded  to 
twenty  millions.  Von  Jarotsky  said  that  he  had  no 
power  to  do  this,  but  he  promised  to  use  his  influence 
with  the  superior  officers  of  the  army  to  have  it  done  as 
soon  as  the  twenty  millions  had  been  paid.  The  contri- 
bution, as  it  was  so  politely  termed — war  having  need 
of  so  many  euphemisms ! — ^was  subsequently  reduced  to 
45,000,000  francs. 

The  General  also  agreed,  at  the  request  of  the  Burgo- 
master, that  for  eight  days  the  German  authorities 
would  make  no  further  requisitions  of  food  or  provi- 
sions, either  in  the  city  or  in  its  faubourgs.  This  agree- 
ment was  drawn  up  August  24th,  1914,  signed  by  von 
Jarotsky  and  the  Burgomaster  and  witnessed  by  Gra- 
bowsky,  the  Conseiller  aiiliqueoi  the  German  Legation. 
And  the  very  next  day  a  German  General  passing 
through  Brussels  told  the  Burgomaster  that  he  would 
not  observe  this  convention  unless  M.  Max  made  it  pos- 
sible for  him  to  bring  at  once  by  railroad  from  St. 
Trond,  a  place  northeast  of  Brussels,  some  stores  of 
food  and  provisions  that  he  had  there.  M.  Max  wrote 
a  protest  to  von  Jarotsky  insisting  that  the  convention 
had  been  made  without  condition,  and  that  for  a  German 
General  to  introduce  a  condition  later  was  to  break 
the  given  word  and  destroy  confidence  in  a  contract 
regularly  signed  by  the  German  Government. 

And  again  on  the  twenty-seventh,  two  days  after  the 
agreement  made  by  von  Jarotsky  to  the  effect  that  there 
would  be  no  more  requisitions  for  eight  days,  a  superior 

305 


BELGIUM 

officer  sent  by  a  General  in  charge  of  an  army  fifty  kilo- 
meters from  Brussels,  came  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville  and 
ordered  M.  Max  to  furnish  him  with  fifty  pounds  of 
yeast.  M.  Max  again  invoked  the  convention,  but  this 
General  said  that  he  was  not  bound  by  von  Jarotsky's 
word. 

In  the  meantime  M.  Max  had  succeeded  in  obtaining 
a  respite  of  thirty  days  for  the  payment  of  the  forty-five 
million  francs.  It  had  been  decided  among  the  dele- 
gates of  the  various  communes  of  the  Agglomeration 
Bruxelloise  (Great  Brussels  comprises  fifteen  com- 
munes, each  with  its  Burgomaster,  but  the  Burgomaster 
of  the  old  historic  Brussels  had  always  been  considered 
as  the  titular  head  of  the  whole  city)  that  the  Commune 
of  Brussels  would  pay  twenty  millions  and  the  other 
communes  thirty  millions  divided  among  them  pro-rata 
to  their  population.  The  city — that  is,  the  Commune  of 
Brussels  proper — made  its  payments  regularly,  and 
when  the  thirtieth  of  September  came  there  were  only 
4,000,000  francs  left  for  the  city  to  pay.  The  suburban 
communes  had  not  succeeded  in  raising  their  thirty  mil- 
lions, and  the  Commune  of  Brussels  itself  did  not  pos- 
sess the  funds  necessary  to  pay  the  part  of  the  other 
communes. 

On  the  twenty-sixth  of  September,  then.  Baron  von 
Liittwitz  published  the  afflche  set  out  above.  Following 
this  and  in  reply  to  it,  M.  Max  wrote  to  M.  Dufaire,  the 
director  of  the  Deutsche  Bank  in  Brussels,  that  the  cer- 
tificates of  indebtedness  which  the  city  had  given  to  the 
German  authorities  could  not  be  paid  on  the  thirtieth, 
and  that  he  did  this  as  a  riposte  to  the  Governor  Gen- 
eral's publications. 

When  I  returned  to  the  Legation  that  evening  Villa- 

306 


THE  ARREST  OF  THE  BURGOMASTER 

lobar  was  waiting  there  to  see  me.  We  had  chatted  a 
httle  while  when  the  echevins  Jacquemain  and  Steens 
were  announced,  and  M.  Jacquemain  came  down  the 
corridor  swiftly,  his  dark  face  darker  still  in  the  stress 
of  a  vivid  emotion. 

"Mauvaises  nouvelles!"  he  exclaimed  as  he  entered 
the  room.  "Max  a  ete  arreteT  He  sank  into  a  chair, 
well  nigh  overcome;  he  was  perhaps  the  Burgomaster's 
closest  friend. 

M.  Max  had  been  arrested  at  two-thirty  in  the  after- 
noon while  at  a  reunion  of  the  delegates  of  the  Agglo- 
meration Bruxelloise,  which  was  discussing  the  measures 
to  be  taken  in  view  of  a  situation  that  was  growing  more 
and  more  alarming ;  oil  was  difficult  to  obtain ;  the  munic- 
ipal gas  and  electric  light  plants  would  soon  have  to 
cease  their  production  because  coal  was  growing  scarce ; 
the  bakeries  could  no  longer  bake  bread.  It  was  difficult 
to  get  coal  to  Brussels,  the  railways  having  been  taken  by 
the  German  authorities  for  their  own  transport;  the 
canal  to  Charleroi  was  being  repaired  and  was  no  longer 
navigable;  horses,  wagons,  all  had  been  requisitioned; 
the  only  means  of  transport  that  remained  was  the  tram- 
way vicinal — what  we  would  call  an  interurban  railway 
— the  city  fathers  were  discussing  all  these  problems 
when  a  German  officer  appeared  and  ordered  the  Burgo- 
master to  report  to  the  Military  Governor.  There  M. 
Max  was  informed  that  he  had  been  relieved  from  his 
functions  as  Burgomaster  and  that  he  would  be  sent 
to  a  fortress  in  Germany. 

At  five  o'clock  that  afternoon  the  echevins  Jacque- 
main, Lemonnier,  Maes  and  Steens  had  gone  to  see  the 
Military  Governor  and  had  told  him  that  all  the  admin- 
istrative measures  that  M.  Max  had  taken  had  been  with 

307 


BELGIUM 

the  approval  and  with  the  accord  of  the  College  echevi- 
nalj  and  insisted  that  M.  Max  had  not  broken  any  of 
his  pacts  with  the  Mihtary  authorities  and  asked  to  be 
arrested  with  M.  Max.  General  von  Liittwitz  produced 
the  letter  that  the  Burgomaster  had  written  to  Dufaire 
of  the  Deutsche  Bank — it  was  for  that  that  he  had  been 
suspended;  he  should  have  written  to  the  authorities, 
said  the  General,  not  to  the  Director  of  the  Bank.  He 
asked  the  echevins  to  assume  the  direction  of  the  af- 
fairs of  the  city;  if  they  did  not  do  so  he  would  name  a 
German  burgomaster  who  would  take  the  necessary 
steps  to  have  the  entire  amount  of  the  indemnity  of  war 
paid.  M.  Jacquemain  proposed  to  General  von  Liitt- 
witz that  he  be  held  as  hostage  in  M.  INIax's  place,  but 
this  the  General,  of  course,  refused.  Then  they  came 
to  the  Legation. 

Villalobar  and  I  decided  to  go  to  General  von  Liitt- 
witz, asking  the  echevins  to  await  our  return.  It  was 
half-past  seven  o'clock,  already  dark,  and  a  chill  wind 
blowing. 

At  the  old  Ministry  for  Foreign  Affairs  there  were 
signs  of  perturbation  and  ill-humour ;  the  sentinels  were 
nasty ;  we  had  difficulty  in  getting  in.  The  young  aide 
in  the  ante-room  was  very  truculent,  glancing  con- 
temptuously at  our  cards  and  saying  curtly: 

"What  do  you  want  to  see  the  General  for?" 

Villalobar's  Spanish  pride  bristled  at  once. 

"Monsieur!"  he  said  in  a  tone  that  might  have  blasted 
the  young  fellow  where  he  stood.  The  officer  handed 
our  cards  back  to  us  saying  that  the  General  was  at 
dinner  and  could  not  be  disturbed.  It  was  difficult  to 
keep  one's  temper  with  such  a  boorish  fellow  as  this 
youth,  and  it  was  unpleasant  to  adopt  in  dealing  with 

308 


THE  ARREST  OF  THE  BURGOMASTER 

him  the  only  tone  he  understood ;  perhaps  it  was  because 
we  could  not  quite  do  the  one  that  we  succeeded  so  well 
in  doing  the  other ;  we  told  him  that  we  would  state  our 
business  to  no  one  but  the  General,  and,  in  short — that 
we  were  not  accustomed  to  speaking  to  aides-de-camp. 

A  flush  of  rage  reddened  the  young  cheeks  that  were 
scarred  by  the  halafres  of  the  student  duels,  but  the 
phrase  did  its  work,  and  young  jackanapes  clicked  his 
heels  and  went  in,  came  slamming  out  presently,  shouted 
angrily  to  us  that  Monsieur  le  General  wished  us  to  wait, 
clicked  his  heels  again,  and  flung  out  of  the  room  in  a 
fine  show  of  temper. 

"Quelle  politesser  said  the  Marquis. 

We  sat  down  and  waited,  cooling  our  heels  if  not  our 
tempers,  while  the  General  finished  his  dinner.  We 
waited  long.  German  Generals  are  good  trenchermen, 
and  the  wine  that  poor  Davignon  had  left  behind  in  his 
cellar  was  excellent.  But  all  things  come  to  an  end,  and 
finally  the  General  came  in.  He  had  dined  well,  of 
course,  and  we  had  not  dined  at  all;  he  came  very 
friendly  and  with  a  certain  loud  laughing  geniality, 
begged  our  pardon  for  having  kept  us  waiting  and 
showed  us  into  his — or  into  Davignon's — private  room. 
We  spoke  of  the  arrest  of  the  Bourgmestre, 

"Qu'est-ce  qut  fd  pent  hien  vous  faire?" 

It  was,  of  course,  none  of  our  business,  as  we  ad- 
mitted, but  our  good  offices  were  at  his  service  iii  the 
exigency.  Then  he  told  us  the  whole  story.  It  was, 
he  said,  the  third  serious  difficulty  that  he  had  had  with 
M.  Max,  and  when  he  mentioned  M.  Max's  name  he  had 
to  restrain  his  feelings;  he  said  that  the  difficulty  was 
that  M.  Max  had  been  growing  too  popular  and  that  his 

309 


BELGIUM 

popularity  had  gone  to  his  head,  in  the  intoxicating  way 
that  popularity  will  at  times. 

"That  man  has  never  written  me  a  letter,"  he  said, 
"in  which  there  was  not  concealed  some  sharp  pricking 
point,"  and  he  gave  a  vicious  stab  with  his  finger  in  the 
air  to  illustrate  the  effect  of  M.  Max's  piquancy. 

"I  said  this  to  him  the  other  day,"  he  went  on,  "  'Mon- 
sieur Max,  do  you  know  what  I  think  you  are  trying 
to  do?  I  think  you  are  trying  to  become  the  first  presi- 
dent of  the  Belgian  Republic!'  " 

He  spoke  then  of  the  first  disagreement  with  M.  Max, 
the  affair  of  the  famous  affiche.  "I  had  no  intention  of 
repeating  what  Max  told  me,"  he  went  on,  "but  I  felt 
in  duty  bound  to  report  it  to  my  Government.  They 
told  it  to  the  Commandant  at  Liege  who  affiched  it." 

Then  he  spoke  of  the  next  affiche^  the  one  concerning 
the  Belgian  flags,  which  was  subsequently  covered  with 
white  paper,  and  at  last  came  to  the  case  under  notice, 
his  own  latest  affiche,  and  M.  Max's  letter  to  Dufaire  of 
the  Deutsche  Bank. 

"There  was  nothing  left  for  me  to  do  but  to  arrest 
Max,"  said  General  von  Liittwitz.  His  face  grew  very 
hard  as  he  sat  there,  and  very  red,  his  grey  hair  giving 
him  a  distinguished  look. 

"One  or  the  other  must  rule  here,"  he  exclaimed,  "he 
or  I,  and  I  am  put  here  to  rule.  When  this  house  burns 
I'll  burn  with  it,  under  the  ashes  of  the  door  sill."  He 
clenched  his  fist,  then  gave  a  rather  harsh  laugh.  We 
made  a  last  effort  to  get  him  to  reconsider  his  decision 
and  to  release  M.  Max,  but  he  shook  his  head  de- 
terminedly. 

"He  has  already  been  sent  away,"  he  explained.  "I 
gave  him  a  fine  dinner,"  he  concluded,  as  though  even 

310 


THE  ARREST  OF  THE  BURGOMASTER 

a  burgomaster  could  ask  no  more,  and  relaxed  more 
comfortably  in  his  chair.  He  added  that  M.  Max  would 
be  sent  to  a  fortress  at  Namur,  in  honourable  confine- 
ment.^ That  seemed  to  close  the  incident.  He  was  pre- 
pared for  trouble  when  the  fact  became  known — he  had 
posted  guns  everywhere ;  but  he  hoped  to  avoid  it.  He 
wished  the  echevins  to  continue  in  their  functions,  and 
he  asked  us  if  we  could  help  him  by  any  suggestions. 

"If  the  Brussels  police  continue  at  their  posts  and 
maintain  order,"  I  asked,  "will  you  leave  that  work  to 
them?" 

"Yes,"  he  said.  "If  we  can  keep  order  for  three  days, 
the  worst  will  be  over." 

We  left  him  then  and  returned  to  my  Legation.  It 
was  about  nine  o'clock  and  Messrs.  Jacquemain  and 
Steens  were  still  waiting.  We  asked  them  to  get  M. 
Lemonnier  and  meet  us  again  at  the  Legation  at  half- 
past  ten. 

M.  Lemonnier  was  a  lawyer  in  Brussels  and 
the  ranking  echevin.  At  the  time  M.  Max  had  been 
named  Burgomaster,  M.  Lemonnier  had  been  indicated, 
by  reason  of  his  length  of  service,  for  the  post,  but  M. 
Max  had  been  chosen  instead.     There  were,  therefore, 

^  ViLLE    DE    BruXELLES 

Avis 

Le  bourgmestre  Max^  ayant  fait  defaut  aux  engagements  en- 
courus  en  vers  le  gouvernement  allemand,  je  me  suis  vu  force  de  le 
suspendre  de  ses  fonctions. 

M.  Max  se  trouve  en  detention  honorable  dans  une  forteresse. 
Bruxelles,   26  septembre^   1914. 

Le  gouverneur  militaire, 
Baron  von  Luttwitz, 

General-ma  j  or. 

311 


BELGIUM 

certain  points  of  delicacy  in  the  situation.  According 
to  precedent  M.  Lemonnier,  as  ranking  echevin, 
would  become  acting  Burgomaster  in  M.  Max's  ab- 
sence, but  when  he  arrived  at  the  hour  fixed,  with  his 
colleagues,  he  was  reluctant  to  assume  the  duties  of 
Bourgmestre  faisant  fonctions  precisely  because  of  the 
old  ambition  to  fill  that  very  post ;  he  had  a  delicacy  that 
did  him  honour,  and  a  reluctance  to  seem  to  profit  by  the 
misfortune  of  his  ancient  rival.  He  was  a  large  man 
and  determined  and  he  seemed  fixed  in  his  determina- 
tion. It  was  a  position,  under  the  circumstances,  doubly 
difi[icult  for  him,  and  one  could  sympathize  with  his  re- 
luctance. And  yet,  there  were  interests  at  stake  larger 
than  any  one  man's  delicacy,  however  creditable  it  might 
be  to  him ;  if  local  self-government  could  be  maintained, 
so  much  at  least  might  be  saved. 

■  Sitting  there  around  that  long  table  where  so  many 
problems  were  to  be  discussed  during  the  troubled 
months  and  years  of  the  future  that  was  so  kindly  hidden 
from  us,  my  thoughts  went  suddenly  to  another  city  far 
across  the  sea,  and  to  its  problems,  which  in  coming  to 
Brussels  I  had  too  fondly  hoped  to  escape.  It  was  a 
lucky  thought,  for  all  suddenly  there  flashed  into  my 
mind  the  peculiar  coincidence  that  here  was  the  same  old 
problem  that  would  not  down,  the  old  ineluctable  strug- 
gle of  the  city  to  be  free.  The  free  city !  And  Brussels 
was  one  of  the  oldest  free  cities  in  the  world! 

I  leaned  forward  toward  ]M.  Lemonnier;  in  Bel- 
gium there  is  one  chord  in  every  citizen  that  vibrates 
instantly  to  the  touch,  and  that  is  the  chord  of  the  old 
city  spirit.  It  seemed  strange  to  be  stating  the  argu- 
ment in  another  tongue  but  I  did  the  best  I  could,  and 
I  said  to  M.  Lemonnier: 

312 


THE  ARREST  OF  THE  BURGOMASTER 

"This  is  not  the  first  time  that  the  city  of  Brussels  has 
been  occupied  by  a  foreign  power.  To-day  it  is  the 
Germans,  not  so  long  ago  it  was  the  Dutch ;  before  that 
it  was  the  French  and  the  Austrians  and — the  Span- 
iards." The  Marquis  smiled  and  bowed.  "Before  that 
it  was  the  Duke  of  Brabant  with  whom  you  struggled. 
But  during  all  those  occupations,  during  all  those 
changes,  there  was  one  thing  that  did  not  change,  one 
flag  that  always  floated  over  the  Hotel  de  Ville  down 
there  in  the  Grand'  Place.  That  was  the  city  of  Brus- 
sels, that  flag  was  the  red  and  green." 

Monsieur  Lemonnier  did  not  wait  for  me  to  finish. 
He  leaned  forward  out  of  the  deep  chair  where  he  sat. 

"I'll  do  it!"  he  said. 

And  so  it  was  settled.  There  were  a  few  details  to 
arrange.    Would  the  police  obey  him?    Yes. 

The  echevins  prepared  an  affiche^  informing  the 
people  that  the  College  would  continue  in  their  func- 
tions, would  maintain  order,  "feraient  marcher  les  af- 
faires/^ 

Villalobar  and  I  wrote  a  note  then  to  von  Liittwitz 
asking  him  to  post  this  affiche;  and  he  thanked  us  for 
suggesting  it.    It  was  after  midnight. 

^  Avis 

Pendant  I'absence  de  M.  le  bourgmestre  Max,  la  marche  des 
affaires  communales  et  le  maintien  de  I'ordre  seront  assures  par  le 
College  echevinal. 

Dans  I'interet  de  la  cite,  nous  faisons  un  supreme  appel  au  calme 
et  au  sang-froid  de  nos  concitoyens.  Nous  comptions  sur  le  con- 
cours  de  tous  pour  assurer  le  maintien  de  la  tranquillite  publique. 

Bruxelles,  27  septembre,  1914. 

Le  College  echevinal. 


XL  VI 

SUNDAY 

I  WAS  startled  out  of  sleep  by  the  heavy  booming  of 
cannon,  and  then  suddenly  it  was  still,  and  the  church- 
bells  were  ringing  in  another  Sunday.  For  days  we 
had  been  waiting  for  the  passes  that  would  permit  Gib- 
son to  go  to  Antwerp  for  the  wheat  and  our  two  mothers 
to  leave.  Their  trunks  had  been  packed  and  were  wait- 
ing and  now  more  than  ever,  since  we  did  not  know  what 
might  follow  the  arrest  of  the  popular  Burgomaster,  we 
were  anxious  to  have  them  gone,  and  to  know  them 
safely  out  of  Belgium.  That  morning  the  passierscheins 
came,  and  at  ten  o'clock  they,  with  Gibson,  in  the  motor 
piled  high  with  luggage,  drove  away  under  the  Ameri- 
can flag.  A  little  knot  of  people  gathered  in  the  Rue  de 
Treves  to  see  the  departure,  a  little  knot  that  quickly 
grew  to  the  proportions  of  a  crowd — a  fact  not  without 
a  disquieting  suggestion.  They  went  away  bravely  and 
as  they  went  we  watched  them,  with  hearts  full,  but  a 
great  load  lifted  from  our  minds.  They  expected  to 
reach  Maestricht  that  night  and  The  Hague  on  the 
morrow. 

The  crowd  outside  melted  away  and  the  town  was 
still.  Villalobar  came  in  and  we  chatted  for  a  long  time — 
oddly  enough  about  the  Spanish-American  war,  and  the 
King  of  Spain,  who  felt  that  the  future  of  America  and 
the  future  of  Spain  were  mysteriously  bound  together, 
and  so  tried  to  do  away  with  every  trace  of  feeling  and 
bitterness. 

314 


SUNDAY 

And  then  Van  Vollenhoven,  Charge  des  Affaires  of 
the  Dutch  Legation,  appeared  to  say  that  he  had  just 
been  down  to  the  Grand'  Place  and  that  a  German  lieu- 
tenant with  some  want  of  tact,  had  selected  that  as  a  pro- 
pitious moment  to  parade  there  some  Belgian  soldiers, 
prisoners  of  war.  As  the  morning  wore  away  the  atmos- 
phere of  the  city  became  surcharged  with  a  nervous 
quality  that  was  not  reassuring;  the  news  of  the  arrest 
of  the  Burgomaster  was  spreading,  and  then  by  noon 
there  were  callers  at  the  Legation  anxiously  inquiring 
if  it  were  true  that  the  American  Minister  had  left.  It 
was  precisely  what  I  had  expected ;  the  crowd  that  had 
gathered  to  watch  the  motor  laden  with  luggage  drive 
away  had  already  done  its  work.  A  number  of  citizens 
suggested  that  some  means  be  devised  to  counteract  the 
effect  of  the  rumour,  and  in  the  afternoon,  then,  shortly 
after  luncheon,  I  took  an  open  motor,  and  with  my  wife 
drove  all  over  Brussels.  The  day  was  fine,  clear  and 
cold,  and  in  the  sunlight  crowds  were  gathered  every- 
where. Our  motor  carried  the  flag,  and  we  drove  along 
the  Boulevard  Bischoff  sheim  to  the  Gare  du  Nord,  the 
Boulevard  Anspach,  and  Rue  Haute,  the  entire  length 
of  the  Rue  de  I'E  scalier,  and  all  through  the  popular  dis- 
tricts of  the  MaroUes.  Children  were  playing  on  the  side- 
walks and  people  were  gossiping  at  the  doors;  there 
were  carts  everywhere  with  fresh  English  walnuts  for 
sale,  the  women  before  them  gesticulating  with  their 
stained  hands.  We  drove  through  the  Boulevard  du 
Midi,  the  Rue  Neuve,  and  on  out  to  Laeken,  and  there 
just  across  the  canal  the  only  incident  of  the  drive  worth 
mentioning  occurred.  The  German  sentinel  stopped  us 
and  a  great  crowd  gathered,  and  when  they  saw  the  flag 
they  raised  excited  cries  of  "Vive  VAmerique!  Vive 

315 


BELGIUM 

VAmeriquer  The  Belgian  police  rushed  everywhere 
among  the  crowd,  crying: 

''AUez!    Allezr 

It  took  the  thick-headed  German  sentinel  as  long  to 
read  the  passierschein  as  though  it  had  been  Chitty  on 
Pleading,  but  he  finished  finally  and  we  got  away  and 
I  can  still  see  among  the  red  and  excited  faces,  the  Bel- 
gian with  a  pointed  yellow  beard  shouting  frantically 
as  he  swung  his  hat  in  the  air : 

^'^Vive  VAmeriquer 


XL  VII 

THE   BOMBARDMENT 

More  and  more  loudly  every  minute,  as  it  seemed,  the 
great  siege  guns  boomed  around  Antwerp;  there  were 
constant  movements  of  troops  through  the  city,  a  con- 
stant drumming  of  those  heavy  iron-shod  heels  on  the 
pavements,  the  great  grey  automobiles  forever  dashing 
about,  and,  at  last,  ambulances  rolling  in  and  up  to  the 
doors  of  the  royal  palace,  and  of  the  Palais  des  Academ- 
ies on  the  boulevard,  which  the  Germans  had  trans- 
formed into  a  vast  military  hospital,^  dismantling  the 

^  Avis 

1.  Conformement  a  Tarticle  15  de  la  Convention  de  Geneve  du 
6  juillet  1906,  je  defends  aux  ambulances  de  la  Croix-Rouge  beige 
et  autres  institutions  semblables  de  recevoir  dorenavant  des  blesses 
allemands  ou  beiges.  Les  blesses  doivent  etre  diriges  aux  hopitaux 
militaires  allemands,  e'est-a-dire: 

Hopital  n°  1,  avenue  de  la  Couronne,  183; 
Hopital  n°  2,  palais  des  Academies; 
Hopital  n°  3,  hopital  de  Schaerbeek; 
Hopital  n°  4,  caserne  Baudouin. 

2.  Le  drapeau  de  la  Croix-Rouge  est  a  enlever,  sous  peine  de 
poursuites  judiciaires,  des  ambulances,  a  I'exception  du  palais  Royal 
et  des  hopitaux  Saint-Pierre  et  Saint- Jean  (art.  21  de  la  Conven- 
tion de  Geneve). 

S.  Pour  des  raisons  d'humanite,  les  militaires  beiges  gravement 
malades  ou  blesses  qui,  d'apres  I'opinion  des  medecins  allemands, 
ne  seront  plus  capables  de  faire  le  service  de  guerre,  seront  dore- 
navant confies  aux  soins  des  medecins  beiges,  des  qu'ils  pourront 

317 


BELGIUM 

other  Red  Cross  hospitals  that  had  been  too  numerously- 
established  everywhere  in  the  city.  There  were  crowds, 
always  at  a  respectful  distance  from  the  great  iron  gates, 
watching  the  wounded  as  they  were  brought  in — ^those 
forms  on  stretchers  with  faces  almost  as  pale  as  the 
bandages  around  their  heads,  and  with  the  wan,  indiffer- 
ent expression  that  suffering  gives  to  the  eyes  of  the  very 
ill. 

It  was  a  rather  pitiful  sight;  and  there  was,  one  of 
those  mornings,  another  sight  to  which  we  were  destined 
to  grow  accustomed — that  of  an  affiche  giving  a  list  of 
coTidamnations  dmort.^  The  crowds  stood  before  the 
gruesome  affiche,  transfixed  somehow  by  its  lugubrious 

etre  transportes.  Le  gouvernement  renonce  a  les  retenir  comme  pris- 
onniers. 

Bruxelles,  le  29  septembre,  1914. 

Le  gouverneur  militaire, 
Baron  von  Luttwitz, 

General-maj  or. 
^A  la  date  du  14  septembre  1914,  un  tribunal  de  guerre  legale- 
ment  convoque  a  condamne  les  sujets  beiges  suivants: 

1.  Van  der  Hagen,  Jean,  ouvrier,  dpmicilie  a  Bruxelles,  ne  le  6 
juin  1878  a  Cureghem,  pour  resistance  contre  une  sentinelle  alle- 
mande  se  trouvant  dans  rexercice  de  ses  fonctions: 

A  Six  Mois  De  Prison. 

2.  Verheyden,  Hortense,  veuve  Robaert,  domicilie  a  Bruxelles, 
nee  le  9  avril  1878  a  Bruxelles,  pour  offenses  graves  contre  I'armee 
allemand  et  contre  un  de  ses  merabres, 

A  Un  An  De  Prison. 

3.  Debonnet,  Julien,  ouvrier,  domicilie  a  Strombeek,  ne  le  23 
septembre  1880  a  Roubaix  (France),  pour  coups  de  feu  contre  une 
sentinelle  allemande, 

A  La  Mort. 
Bruxelles,  le  16  septembre,  1914. 

(Signe)     VON  Luttwitz, 
General  et  Gouverneur. 
318 


THE  BOMBARDMENT 

suggestion,  as  they  stood  and  watched  the  wounded 
borne  in,  or  as  they  stood  on  the  esplanade  at  the  Mon- 
tagne  de  la  Cour  and  gazed  almost  vacantly  off  to  the 
west,  where  there  were  columns  of  smoke,  indicating 
they  knew  not  what.  They  were  all  idle  to  begin  with, 
and  all  dumb  and  dulled  with  care,  and  there  was  always 
the  shame  and  the  grief  of  the  occupation;  one  never  saw 
a  happy  or  a  cheerful  face,  except  the  faces  of  the  chil- 
dren who  played  at  war,  carrying  the  American  flag  and 
flourishing  wooden  swords  and  lustily  singing  "La  Bra- 
banconne"  under  the  very  noses  of  German  soldiers. 

They  were  the  only  happy  ones,  those  children,  who 
so  wisely  lived  in  a  world  of  their  own,  so  much  more 
wisely  ordered  than  ours  that  it  had  once  been  likened 
to  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  Happiness,  indeed,  was  a 
word  we  no  longer  used  in  the  midst  of  such  universal 
sorrow — not  even  when  word  came  that  our  mothers  had 
safely  reached  The  Hague,  or  when  one  morning  to 
our  relief,  Cobb,  McCutcheon,  and  Bennett  arrived  from 
Aix-la-Chapelle.  They  were  in  the  khaki  uniforms  that 
befitted  them  as  war  correspondents,  and  they  seemed  to 
have  been  the  guests  rather  than  the  prisoners  of  the  Ger- 
mans; they  had  been  hospitably  treated,  and  now  they 
came  as  the  first  of  those  journalists  who  were  shown 
over  Belgium  by  German  officers,  who  were  most  scru- 
pulous in  seeing  that  their  parties  were  indeed  person- 
ally conducted. 

We  were  still  having  trouble  getting  our  English 
nurses  away ;  the  train  had  been  arranged  and  the  nurses 
had  repaired  to  the  Gare  du  Nord  but  at  the  last  mo- 
ment, for  some  reason,  the  authorities  refused  to  let 
them  depart  and  the  train  pulled  out  without  them,  leav- 
ing them  sitting  there  on  their  boxes  weeping. 

319 


BELGIUM 

And  all  this  while  the  deep  detonations  of  the  cannons 
north  of  us  sounded  heavily  in  the  ear  and  on  the  heart, 
rising  steadily  to  its  terrible  crescendo  that  was  to  mark 
the  finale  of  another  movement  in  the  great  fugue. 
On  the  fifth  Les  Nouvelles  puhliees  par  le  Gouverne- 
ment  allemand  announced  that  the  outer  forts  of  Lierre, 
Waelhem,  Koningsoeyt,  and  the  intermediary  redoubts 
had  fallen,  and  that  through  the  breach  in  the  circle  of 
exterior  forts  the  Germans  were  now  able  to  push  the 
attack  against  the  inner  circle  of  forts  and  against  the 
city  itself.  The  people  had  been  convinced  that  Ant- 
werp was  impregnable;  they  had  awaited  the  issue  of 
the  siege  with  confidence,  thinking  that  relief  would 
come.  But  now  among  those  classes  which,  if  not  the 
more  intelligent,  had  better  means  of  information,  doubt 
had  grown  and  they  began  to  consider  the  possibility  of 
the  fall  of  Antwerp.  And  then — what  would  become 
of  the  King  and  the  Queen,  the  Court  and  the  Govern- 
ment? No  one  could  envisage  the  situation,  it  was 
impossible  to  take  any  large  view  of  it,  the  mind  refused 
longer  to  receive  any  impression  of  this  vast  epopee  that 
was  being  enacted  on  the  huge  theatre  of  Europe.  We 
simply  could  not  realize  it,  that  was  all,  and  we  turned 
from  the  war  to  talk  of  the  price  of  grapes,  or  of  the 
fact  that  the  bread  was  dark,  or  of  the  latest  afflche  or- 
dering that  German  money  be  accepted  on  the  basis  of  a 
mark  at  one  franc  twenty-five  centimes.^    Coin  had  long 

^  Arrete 

1.  II  ne  peut  pas  etre  deroge  par  des  conventions  particuli^res 
a  la  prescription  de  I'arrete  royal  du  3  octobre  1914  (Bulletin  offi- 
ciel  des  lois  et  arretes  pour  le  territoire  beige  occupe  du  5  octobre 
1914,  n®6)  d'apres  laquelle  la  monnaie  allemande  (especes,  billets 

320 


r 


THE  BOMBARDMENT 

since  disappeared  and  paper  certificates  were  beginning 
to  appear  and,  somehow,  life  went  on. 

de  banque  et  papier-moimaie)  doit  etre  acceptee  en  paiement,  et  cc 
jusqu'a  nouvel  ordre,  sur  la  base  de:  1  mark  valant  au  moins  fr.  1,25. 
2.     Cet  arrete  entre  en  vigueur  le  jour  de  sa  publicati{Hi. 
Bruxelles,  le  15  novembre,  1914. 

Le  gouverneur  general  en  Belgique, 

Baron  von  der  Goltz, 

Feldmardchal. 


XL  VIII 

THE   SUMMONS 

We  would  fall  asleep  at  night  to  the  lugubrious  boom- 
ing of  those  heavy  siege  guns  the  Austrians  had  so  osten- 
tatiously dragged  along  the  boulevards  on  their  way  to 
Antwerp;  and  we  would  awaken  to  the  same  sound  in 
wan  mornings  of  care.  Now  and  then  there  would  be 
the  drumming  of  those  iron  heels  on  the  pavement  and 
the  exultant  music  of  a  military  band,  adding  irony  to 
despair. 

^^Ah!  ils  sont  tres  gais,  ils  sont  contents!^'  said  one  of 
the  servants  one  morning  bitterly. 

The  incessant  thud  and  rumble  shook  the  house  so  that 
it  trembled  and  rattled  the  windows  in  their  casements ; 
and  it  got  on  the  nerves.  The  doom  of  Antwerp  was 
not  far  away.  One  evening  Baron  von  der  Lancken 
said  that  the  Germans  had  again  taken  Malines  and  that 
they  could  no  more  be  dislodged.  Then  another  day 
of  heavy  detonations,  and  another  and  another.  One  by 
one  the  outer  forts  were  falling,  and  then  one  morning 
the  Baron  came  to  say  that  the  bombardment  of  the 
city  itself  was  about  to  begin,  and  would  I  be  so  kind 
as  to  say  to  the  Belgian  Government  that  if  the  Belgians 
would  promise  not  to  use  the  towers  of  the  cathedral 
and  other  monuments  for  military  purposes  they,  the 
Germans,  would  promise  not  to  bombard  them. 

"We  do  not  wish  a  repetition  of  the  affair  of  Rheims," 
von  der  Lancken  said,  "and  we  are  tired  of  being  called 
barbarians." 

322 


THE  SUMMONS 

For  the  diplomatic  representative  of  a  neutral  govern- 
ment it  was  a  delicate  question,  for  we  were  not  to  take 
any  action  that  might  have  relation  to  military  opera- 
tions without  instructions.  The  German  authorities 
were  most  eager  that  the  arrangement  be  made,  and 
their  interesting  and  original  opinion  was  that  this  was 
not  a  military  operation.  They  knew,  certainly,  far  more 
than  I  about  military  movements  and  I  could  only  say 
to  them  that  if  the  bombardment  of  Antwerp  was  not 
a  military  operation  I  should  like  them  to  do  me  the 
honour,  when  they  had  a  real  military  operation  on  hand, 
to  let  me  know. 

I  was,  of  course,  anxious  to  aid  in  sparing  those  monu- 
ments and  yet,  so  readily  does  doubt  poison  even  the 
most  credulous  mind  in  a  world  where  agreements  had 
a  way  of  transmuting  themselves  into  chiffons  de  papier, 
that  I  was  a  prey  to  unworthy  suspicions,  and  so  sent 
a  despatch  to  Washington  saying  that  if  the  Govern- 
ment desired,  Gibson,  then  at  Antwerp,  could  be  in- 
structed to  bring  the  indications  of  the  buildings  back 
to  Brussels. 

Then  one  morning — it  was  the  sixth  of  October;  we 
were  getting  off  the  English  nurses,  one  hundred  and 
twenty  of  them,  that  day,  and  the  doctors  as  well,  includ- 
ing Wyatt,  for  all  of  which  we  were  duly  grateful — 
came  Hermancito,  always  a  very  mine  of  gossip,  and  told 
me  that  the  presence  of  military  attaches  proved  that  the 
Kaiser  was  in  Belgium,  perhaps  in  Brussels.  Antwerp 
was  to  fall  on  the  morrow ;  the  city  had  been  simmioned 
to  surrender,  and  the  time  had  expired  at  six  o'clock  that 
very  day.  The  news  spread  abroad,  in  the  way  it  used 
to  do  in  those  dumb  days  without  a  Press.  The  city  set- 
tled under  a  sodden  melancholy;  as  the  troops  marched 

323 


BELGIUM 

down  the  streets  men  stood  on  the  corners  and  watched 
them  in  despair. 

The  next  morning — Wednesday  the  seventh  of  Octo- 
ber— Villalobar  being  at  my  house,  at  ten  o'clock  the 
Baron  von  der  Lancken  and  a  Colonel  von  Leipsig  ar- 
rived ;  they  came  to  ask  us  to  inform  the  Government  at 
Antwerp  of  the  Germans'  intention  to  bombard  the  city 
unless  they  surrendered.  They  came  officially,  wearing 
their  swords,  and  bearing  official  documents — The 
Hague  Conventions,  no  less,  or  what  was  left  of  them, 
and  on  these  they  squarely  placed  themselves.  Article  26 
was  the  rock  that  yet  projected  from  the  welter  of  chaos 
about  us;  they  said  that  according  to  Article  26  it  was 
their  duty  to  use  all  means  to  notify  the  town,  and  inas- 
much as  the  Belgians  refused  to  receive  any  parlement- 
aires,  they  had  to  have  recourse  to  us.  Curiously  and 
luckily,  almost  at  that  very  moment  I  had  a  despatch 
from  Washington  about  the  preservation  of  historic 
monuments  at  Antwerp.  It  had  all  been  arranged  nicely, 
and  we  set  to  work  on  a  letter,  citing  the  premonitory 
Article  26  and  communicating  to  the  local  authorities  at 
Antwerp  the  request  made  to  us  by  the  Germans.  We 
decided  finally  to  send  the  letter  by  Senor  Sorela,  Villa- 
lobar's  white  bearded  naval  attache.  He  was  to  go  in 
my  motor  with  Adrien — one  of  our  chauffeurs — ^to  drive 
him  and  Baron  von  der  Lancken  to  see  him  safely 
through  the  lines.  I  wrote  a  letter  to  Davignon  and  one 
to  our  Consul-General,  Mr.  Diederich,  setting  forth  the 
facts;  and  Colonel  Sorela  departed  in  state  under  the 
Spanish  and  American  flags,  with  a  white  flag  to  use 
at  the  lines. 


\ 

XLIX 

THE  ENGLISH  HAVE  ARRIVED 

Colonel  Sorela — ^who  according  to  some  Spanish 
rule  was  a  Colonel  even  though  he  was  in  the  Navy — and 
Adrien  came  back  from  Antwerp  the  next  morning  at 
three  o'clock.  Thej^  had  had  a  wild,  adventurous  time ; 
it  was  with  difficulty  that  they  had  got  out  of  Antwerp, 
and  once  out  they  had  even  more  difficulty  in  getting 
back  into  Brussels,  for  the  bombardment  had  begun  and 
shrapnel  was  bursting  over  the  hood  of  the  automobile. 
"Mon  brave  Adrien!''  said  Colonel  Sorela  enthusiastic- 
ally, laying  a  hand  on  the  little  chauffeur's  shoulder  as 
though  he  were  giving  him  an  accolade.  Arrived  at 
Antwerp,  Colonel  Sorela  had  gone  to  see  General  de 
Guisse,  who  did  not  at  first  understand  and  refused  to 
receive  the  Colonel  and  his  message;  he  would  re- 
ceive, indeed,  no  parlementaire,  would  not  surrender, 
would  fight  to  the  death.  But  when  Colonel  Sorela 
explained  that  he  had  not  come  demanding  a  surrender, 
and  that  he  was  merely  to  inform  the  local  population 
of  the  impending  bombardment,  the  General  thanked 
him  for  his  services  to  the  city  of  Antwerp. 

Such  was  Colonel  Sorela's  official  report,  officially  de- 
livered with  appropriate  salutes.  But  it  was  his  unoffi- 
cial report  that  was  the  most  interesting,  and  that  I 
did  not  have  from  him  until  I  had  had  it  from  Adrien. 
Arriving  at  three  in  the  morning,  Adrien  had  not  been 
able  to  arouse  the  house,  and  had  patiently  sat  in  his 
motor  before  the  door  until  half-past  five  in  the  morn- 

325 


BELGIUM 

ing,  when  Joseph  awoke  from  the  sound  slumber  with 
which  he  was  nightly  blessed,  and  opened  to  him  the 
great  iron  gates  in  the  courtyard.  And  when  I  came 
down — not  at  half-past  five,  by  any  means — Adrien 
came  to  me  and  with  great  blazing  eyes  told  me  an 
astonishing  secret. 

The  English  had  arrived !  Antwerp  was  full  of  them ! 
Oh,  there  could  be  no  mistake;  he  knew  the  uniforms, 
and  they  were  everywhere,  thousands  and  thousands  of 
them — in  short,  the  British  army!  It  was  perhaps  the 
only  bit  of  good  news  that  we  had  had  since  the  war 
began,  and  it  was  the  last  we  were  to  hear  for  a  long 
time.  And  all  day  we  lived  in  the  pleasurable  excite- 
ment of  the  news,  not  daring  to  mention  it,  wondering 
if  the  Germans  knew,  and  almost  every  minute  expecting 
some  great  event  to  be  born  of  it. 

And  then  that  afternoon  at  five  o'clock  came  Gibson, 
with  as  many  adventures  to  relate  as  Adrien,  and  great 
sacks  of  mail,  and  the  news  that  the  mothers  had  sailed 
the  day  before  on  the  Baltic  in  the  care  of  Richard 
Harding  Davis.  Gibson  was  accompanied  by  Harold 
Fowler,  of  the  London  Embassy,  come  to  take  out  the 
English  nurses.  We  could  tell  him  that  they  were  al- 
ready out — but  what  of  Antwerp,  and  the  British  army? 

Ah,  Antwerp !  The  King  and  the  Queen  had  gone — 
the  army  had  gone,  the  Government  had  gone — out  on 
the  road  in  the  night  toward  Ostend. 

But  the  British  army?  Gone  too;  it  had  been  only 
a  little  handful  of  troops,  come  too  late — and  Antwerp 
must  fall. 

We  were  up  late  that  night  hearing  from  Gibson  and 
Fowler  the  news  from  London,  reading  a  great  mass  of 
mail  from  America,  the  first  in  many  weeks,  and  the 

326 


THE  ENGLISH  HAVE  ARRIVED 

newspapers,  full  of  news  indeed — long  stories  to  the  ef- 
fect that  I  had  sent  protests  to  the  Kaiser  for  having 
bombarded  Antwerp  from  Zeppelins;  that  I  had  ap- 
pointed M.  Max  Secretary  of  Legation  in  order  to  save 
his  life ;  that  I  had  gone  out  to  meet  the  German  General 
and  ordered  him  not  to  lay  a  hand  on  Brussels.  Too 
bad  that  the  cinema-man  could  not  have  been  there! 

Gibson  within  ten  minutes  after  his  arrival  had  taken 
to  the  Germans  the  list  of  monuments  in  Antwerp,  which 
in  accordance  with  the  agreement  were  to  be  protected 
in  the  bombardment,  and  one  of  the  German  officers, 
with  that  peculiar  sentimentality  that  seemed  always  to 
lie  side  by  side  with  their  ferocity,  was  particularly  in- 
terested to  know  that  the  zoological  garden  was  marked 
down  as  immune. 

"JLes  pauvres  hetesT  he  said. 

I  think  that  the  list  of  buildings  to  be  protected  was 
not  of  much  practical  benefit  and,  as  it  proved,  hardly 
necessary.  The  bombardment  of  the  inner  city  had  not 
lasted  very  long  and  was  then,  indeed,  nearly  over. 


ANTWERP   HAS   FALLEN ! 

There  was  no  sound  of  firing  the  next  day,  and  we 
had  grown  so  used  to  the  sound  that  the  stillness  left 
us  vaguely  uneasy,  as  though  some  normal  thing  were 
missing;  we  were  like  the  women  to  whom  Villalobar 
gave  refuge  in  his  Legation  during  the  bombardment  at 
Lisbon  at  the  time  of  the  revolution ;  at  every  report  of 
the  cannon  they  screamed,  until  he  had  them  sent  to 
the  cellar,  and  then,  in  a  little  while,  they  came  up  to 
complain  that  they  could  no  longer  hear  the  guns.  It 
was  a  strange,  silent,  portentous  day.  In  the  afternoon 
Madame  Davignon  came  to  inquire  after  the  health  of 
her  husband.  "He  was  well,  was  he  not  ?  And  safe,  was 
he  not?"  And  I  did  not  have  the  heart  to  tell  her  that 
as  a  result  of  his  responsibilities  and  perplexities  and 
worries  he  had  just  had  a  stroke  of  apoplexy. 

The  German  Headquarters  was  deserted;  for  once 
they  were  not  working  there.  There  was  an  unwonted  air 
of  sombre  quiet,  as  though  life  and  its  affairs  were  in 
suspense ;  no  one  was  to  be  seen  until  Conrad,  the  good- 
natured,  serviceable,  kindly  clerk,  saw  me  and  said : 

"Anvers  est  tomhef*  and  he  added,  diplomatically, 
"officietisement/^ 

I  went  back  to  the  Legation ;  de  Leval  was  there. 

"Antwerp  has  fallen,"  he  said.  He  said  no  more,  too 
much  depressed  to  comment  on  the  fact. 

Later  in  the  evening  came  Madame  W ,  lovely 

in  her  mourning. 

328 


ANTWERP  HAS  FALLEN 

'^Anvers  est  tombe!  Je  suis  tout  a  fait  ruinee!"  she 
said.  She  had  large  factories  in  and  near  Antwerp,  and 
German  soldiers,  she  had  heard,  were  taking  away  all 
they  contained,  though  later  I  was  able  to  save  some- 
thing for  her. 

And  then  came  Villalobar  with  a  long  face,  and  the 
same  note.  Antwerp  fallen!  The  news  was  not  only 
all  over  town,  it  was  all  over  the  world,  for  he  had  had 
a  telegram  from  Madrid. 

Another  caller  arrived,  M.  J ,  a  Brussels  lawyer. 

"Is  it  true  that  Antwerp  has  fallen?"  he  demanded. 

"Yes,"  I  said. 

And  then  a  curious  phenomenon  occurred — an  eccen- 
tric reaction  of  human  nerves  to  a  long  dreaded  catas- 
trophe— at  last  arrived.  He  grew  instantly  livid  with 
rage,  his  eyes  blazed,  he  advanced  with  clenched  fists. 

"How  dare  you!"  he  said.  "How  dare  you  tell  me 
that!     It  is  not  true!     It  is  not  true!" 

He  was  furious,  indignant,  as  though  I  had  insulted 
him  wantonly,  impiously  sullied  some  point  of  honour. 

"It  is  impossible !  It  is  impossible !  Those  forts  were 
built  to  be  impregnable!  Nothing  could  overthrow 
them!  Not  the  Germans,  not  any  one!"  And  he  sank 
forward  onto  my  table  and  beat  it  convulsively  with  his 
fists. 

Down  the  long  corridor  there  were  voices  and,  strange 
in  that  moment,  the  gay  sound  of  women's  laughter. 
Denys  was  there — Denys  of  the  Belgian  Foreign  Office. 
What  was  the  news?  I  heard  him  ask.  "Tomhe"  said 
a  voice.  The  laughter  ceased;  there  was  a  hush,  then 
silence. 

Gibson  came ;  he  had  seen  the  Germans ;  they  had  told 

329 


BELGIUM 

him,  and  added :  "And  now  we'll  push  the  Belgian  Gov- 
ernment into  the  sea." 

I  had  one  more  visitor  that  evening  quite  late — von 

S ,  a  German  officer.     He  came  in  from  the  field, 

cold  and  wet  and  weary.  He  sat  down  in  a  chair  before 
the  little  open  fire  that  burned  in  my  room.  He  threw 
back  his  greyish-blue  overcoat,  took  off  his  cap,  reveal- 
ing his  grey  hair,  arranged  his  long  sabre  between  his 
knees,  and  was  for  a  moment  silent.  He  was  a  distin- 
guished man  in  appearance  and  not  all  the  mire  and  dirt 
of  war  could  hide  a  certain  elegance  that  was  implicit  in 
his  attire.  He  had  lived  long  years  in  London,  long  years 
in  France ;  he  spoke  all  the  European  languages  as  well 
as  he  spoke  German.  He  sat  there  a  moment  and 
stretched  out  a  white  hand  toward  the  grateful  blaze ;  a 
gold  bracelet  that  he  wore  glistened  in  its  warm  light. 
Then,  suddenly,  with  an  impulsive  gesture,  as  though 
the  fire  had  burned  his  fingers,  he  withdrew  his  hand, 
passed  it  wearily  over  his  face,  and  then  covered  his  eyes 
with  his  palm. 

"Are  you  tired?"  I  asked. 

He  took  away  his  hand  and  looked  up ;  looked  at  me 
with  an  expression  in  his  blue  eyes  that  was  terrible  to 
see.  He  did  not  answer  my  question ;  perhaps  he  had 
not  heard  it. 

"This  thing,"  he  began,  "this  thing  of  standing  old 
peasants  up  against  the  wall — well,  it's  no  business  for 
a  gentleman  I" 


LI 

THE   REFUGEES 

Antwerp  had  fallen,  and  the  people  of  Brussels,  as 
though  stunned  by  some  new  and  unexpected  bereave- 
ment, stood  in  silent  groups  with  solemn  faces  about  the 
affiches  on  the  walls,  staring  long  at  the  brief  announce- 
ment: 

"^Les  troupes  allemandes  sont  entrees  a  Anvers  hier 
apres-midi." 

Then  along  the  Antwerp  road,  open  once  more  to 
travel,  streamed  the  refugees — that  strange,  melancholy- 
procession  which  unrolled  in  endless  sequence  its  myriad 
obscure  and  anonymous  tragedies.  For  days  and  days 
the  poor  folk  whom  the  war  had  driven  out  of  that  land, 
once  so  pleasant,  between  Brussels  and  Antwerp  came 
pouring  into  the  capital.  The  highroad  was  crowded 
with  them — ^miserable  peasants  with  woebegone  faces, 
plodding  stolidly  on  out  of  those  stricken  towns  that  had 
paid  for  the  resistance  of  the  Belgian  army,  when  it  fell 
back  from  Liege  on  the  fortified  place  of  Antwerp. 
They  had  left  behind  their  ruined  villages  and  their  van- 
ished homes,  and  before  them  there  lay  they  knew  not 
what  new  sufferings,  nor  seemed  any  more  to  care. 
These  were  they  who,  unable  to  slip  through  the  lines 
into  Brussels,  or  over  the  border  into  Holland,  or  west- 
ward into  the  plains  of  Flanders,  or  perhaps — strange 
and  touching  phenomenon — in  the  peasant's  stubborn 
attachment  to  his  own  soil,  had  clung  to  their  homes  even 
when  they  lay  in  ruins  about  them.  Then,  driven  out  at 
last,  they  had  hidden  themselves  in  the  heather  and  the 

331 


BELGIUM 

bracken  of  the  drear  Campine,  or  in  the  woods,  in  ra- 
vines, in  fields,  in  ditches,  anywhere  they  could  find 
shelter,  like  hunted  animals ;  and  now  that  Antwerp  was 
fallen  they  merged  and  trailed  their  miseries  along  the 
road  into  Brussels.  Some  of  those  haggard  eyes  had 
looked  on  while  Eppeghem  was  destroyed  and  had  wit- 
nessed the  dreadful  deeds  at  Aerschot  or  at  Boortmeer- 
beek,  the  horrors  of  Hofstade  or  of  Sempst.  The  scat- 
tered throngs  moved  on,  dumb,  heavy,  slow,  without  a 
word,  without  a  cry,  without  a  hope,  beyond  the  power 
of  expression  or  the  need  of  it  any  more,  treading  a 
silent  calvary  of  which  no  human  means  could  voice  the 
pain.  There  were  men  bent  beneath  their  packs,  and 
bowed  under  a  far  heavier  load  of  despair ;  women  with 
wan  faces,  whereon  the  stain  of  futile  tears  had  long 
since  dried,  shawls  over  their  heads,  figures  of  utter  mis- 
ery ;  and  children,  their  smiles  gone,  trotting  in  the  mud 
beside  their  elders,  glancing  up  now  and  then  with  that 
most  terrible  of  all  expressions  the  human  countenance 
can  assume — that  look  of  terror  in  the  eyes  of  little  chil- 
dren who  for  the  first  time,  in  this  our  tragic  life,  realize 
that  there  are  calamities  which  their  mothers  have  no 
power  to  avert.  The  children  clumped  along  in  their 
sabots,  which  the  Flemish  onomatopoetically  call  Mom- 
pen;  the  elder  among  them  helping  the  younger,  some- 
times carrying  them  in  their  thin,  pathetic- arms. 

Day  after  day  and  all  through  the  night,  in  rain  and 
mud  and  cold,  in  those  drear  October  days  of  1914,  they 
trooped  on  with  no  place  to  go,  without  hope,  almost 
without  the  will  to  hope.  They  trooped  on  in  wooden 
shoes  or  in  no  shoes  at  all,  and  they  bore  in  their  arms, 
or  on  their  backs,  their  little  all  tied  up  in  bundles.  Some 
of  them,  the  less  unfortunate,  had  carts,  and  since  they 

332 


/ 


THE  REFUGEES 

had  no  longer  any  patient  dogs  to  draw  them  they  pa- 
tiently drew  them  themselves,  straining  against  the 
ropes,  their  forms  bowed  in  labour.  Though  it  is,  no 
doubt,  a  vicious  habit  to  look  at  life  through  the  eye  of 
the  artist  and  the  writer,  they  reminded  one  of  the  figures 
in  Laereman's  pictures,  and  had  all  that  pathos  of  toil 
with  which  Frederic  has  imbued  his  peasants.     ^ 

Now  and  then,  when  some  German  officer  in  arrogant 
indifference,  muffled  in  the  fur-collar  of  his  grey  coat, 
swept  by  in  his  grey  motor,  or  some  detachment  of  sol- 
diers, stolid  and  with  brutish  insensibility,  marched 
along  slavishly  singing  their  songs,  the  refugees  turned 
out  into  the  ditches  and  waited,  and  when  the  soldiers 
had  passed  they  climbed  back  onto  the  highway  and 
plodded  on  again. 

Twice  I  saw  the  pageant  of  human  woe  and  misery 
organized  to  the  glory  of  war;  I  saw  it  the  first  time 
in  the  glitter  of  an  autumn  sun ;  I  saw  it  a  week  later  in 
the  scumbled  greys  of  a  dismal  day  of  rain,  and  I  hope 
never  to  look  upon  the  like  again. 

There  were  sights  to  see  along  the  Antwerp  road  in 
those  days ;  German  troops  coming  back  from  the  siege, 
with  long  trains  of  lumbering  wagons  filled  with  knap- 
sacks and  rifles,  helmets,  belts,  sabres,  all  the  salvage 
they  had  economically  gathered ;  ruined  villages  like  lit- 
tle Vilvorde,  a  spot  sacred  to  the  English-speaking  race, 
for  there  William  Tyndale  was  burned  for  having  trans- 
lated the  Bible  into  our  tongue;  wrecks  of  houses,  their 
windows  broken  in,  their  walls  riddled  with  bullets  or 
pierced  by  gaping  shell-holes  vomiting  their  debris  into 
the  street;  and  all  the  beautiful  ash-trees  that  used  to 
line  the  road  felled  to  clear  the  way  for  cannon-balls — 
some,  indeed,  felled  by  the  cannon-balls  themselves. 

333 


BELGIUM 

Near  Eppeghem  were  the  trenches  the  Belgians  had 
abandoned,  stretching  across  the  yellow  fields  where  as- 
paragus— the  famous  asperges  de  Malines — ^had  been 
growing,  the  fields  that  had  been  so  downy,  so  feathery, 
all  trampled  down  in  the  rage  that  had  seared  them  with 
its  hot  breath.  In  the  little  niches  in  the  trench-walls 
there  were  crusts  of  mouldy  bread,  a  tin  cup,  or  a  can- 
tine;  Belgian  hepis  and  knapsacks  were  strewn  about; 
and  in  one  place  a  subterranean  room  had  been  hollowed 
out,  the  garlands  of  paper-flowers  still  on  its  clayey 
walls,  and  a  table  with  matches,  a  lamp,  a  bottle  and  the 
remains  of  the  last  supper — all  as  they  had  left  it  when 
at  last  they  had  to  fly.  And  there  was  one  sentient  thing 
— a  dog  lying  in  one  of  the  caverns;  the  poor  fellow 
stared  with  great  pathetic  eyes  but  refused  to  come  out, 
and  lay  there  waiting  for  the  master  who  would  never 
more  -return. 

Eppeghem  was  a  silent  place  of  ruins ;  not  a  roof  re- 
mained, not  a  house  that  had  not  been  ravaged  by  fire; 
the  pretty  grey  old  church  but  a  heap  of  blackened  stone 
and  mortar.  The  body  of  a  horse  was  lying  in  the  street, 
its  stiff*  legs  sticking  up  in  the  air ;  hideous  cats  prowled 
among  the  ruins ;  and  everywhere  there  were  black  bot- 
tles, thousands  of  them,  emptied  of  their  wine  by  the 
Germans  in  their  guzzling. 

It  was  so  at  Malines;  empty  bottles  everywhere — 
ranged  on  window-sills,  on  door  steps,  or  rolling  in  the 
streets — evidence  of  an  insatiable  thirst.  German  sol- 
diers, in  that  ugly  field-grey,  were  slinking  out  of  houses 
hiding  bottles  under  their  tunics.  The  town  was  deserted 
by  all,  save  now  and  then  one  saw  some  girl  gathering 
bits  of  wood  with  which  to  make  a  fire,  or  a  few  women 
bent  above  the  piles  of  debris^  picking  it  over,  trying  to 

334 


THE  REFUGEES 

rescue  something  from  the  rubbish,  all  that  remained  to 
them. 

The  beautiful  Grand*  Place  was  but  a  heap  of  charred 
brick  and  twisted  iron;  and  while  the  cathedral  was 
standing,  there  were  great  holes  yawning  in  its  walls  and 
its  carven  stone  was  all  broken,  and  every  pane  of  the 
stained  glass — all  that  remained  of  a  beautiful  lost  art — 
was  shattered  to  bits  and  quite  gone,  and  its  chimes, 
under  the  magic  hand  of  JefF  Denyn,  would  sound 
their  mellow  peals  across  the  fields  no  more.  Near  by, 
the  grey  old  monastic  residence  of  Cardinal  Mercier 
stood  with  its  roof  beaten  in. 

Beyond,  toward  Antwerp,  stood  the  fort  of  Waelhem, 
one  of  the  outer  defenses — the  key,  I  believe,  to  the  po- 
sition. About,  on  every  side,  stretched  the  fields,  gaunt 
and  bare,  sodden  from  their  late  inundation — every  tree 
cut  down  and  intricate  entanglements  of  barbed  wire  and 
chevaux  de  frise  everywhere.  Here  and  there  was  a  new 
grave,  with  a  wooden  cross  lettered  in  Flemish  or  in 
French;  and  just  outside  the  fort,  near  the  bridge  across 
the  moat,  there  was  the  grave  of  a  German  soldier,  his 
rifle  and  his  helmet  laid  upon  it,  with  a  few  faded  flow- 
ers. Evening  was  stealing  over  the  fields  from  which 
the  waters  had  not  all  receded ;  there  were  pools  here  and 
there,  gleaming  in  the  slanting  rays  of  the  sun.  There 
was  the  awful  silence  that  follows  cataclysm — as  though 
not  a  living  thing  were  left  on  earth,  as  though  the  end 
of  the  world  had  come. 

The  great  mound  of  the  grass-grown  fort  heaved  itself 
above  the  wet  level  plain,  the  curve  of  its  outline  broken 
by  the  enormous  hole  that  had  been  torn,  like  a  crater, 
in  its  very  summit  by  the  shell  of  the  "42"  that,  in  the 
deadly  precision  of  the  final  and  perfect  shot,  had  blasted 

335 


BELGIUM 

its  steel  cupola  to  bits.  And  there  on  the  jagged  sum- 
mit the  black,  white,  and  red  flag  of  modern  Germany 
hung  from  its  staff  and  a  sentinel  stood  beside  it,  soli- 
tary, immobile,  his  spiked  helmet  and  his  long  bayonet 
outlined  in  sharp  silhouette  against  the  sky  of  ^f aint, 
delicate  rose,  where  the  sun  had  set  as  though  for  the 
last  time. 

An  hour  before  we  had  driven  into  Malines,  and  there 
by  the  ancient  gate,  the  Porte  de  Bruxelles,  an  old  peas- 
ant was  sitting  in  the  sun  before  the  door  of  his  ruined 
home;  the  light  of  day  shone  through  the  broken  win- 
dows and  the  roof  was  gone.  When  he  saw  the  little 
American  flag  on  the  motor  he  raised  his  hand  in  solemn 
salute.  When  we  returned  late  in  the  afternoon  there 
was  the  old  peasant  still  sitting  before  the  ruins  of  his 
home;  he  seemed  not  to  have  moved,  but  sat  there  in 
dumb  despair,  and  he  raised  his  hand  again  to  his  cap 
in  that  reverent  salute.  What  did  it  mean  to  him,  that 
bright  bit  of  bunting  with  its  fluttering  red-and-white 
stripes  and  the  white  stars  on  the  blue?  What  vague 
impressionistic  dream  of  liberty  and  of  justice  did  it 
evoke  before  those  old  eyes  that  had  gazed  on  nameless 
horrors  and  were  beyond  tears?  I  uncovered  to  him; 
I  trust  that  he  understood. 

Somewhere  along  the  road  beyond  Vilvorde  there  was 
a  German  officer,  his  motor  beside  the  road,  en  panne — 
a  punctured  tire.  He  was  accompanied  by  his  wife,  an 
officer  and  a  chauff'eur.  He  spoke  French  with  diffi- 
culty, and  I  thought  he  was  asking  me  to  take  his  wife 
in  to  Brussels;  I  offered,  of  course,  to  do  this  but, 
"Oh,  no,"  he  said  lightly,  "she  can  wait  there."  And 
he  climbed  into  the  car,  taking  the  vacant  seat,  and  rode 
into  Brussels. 

336 


THE  REFUGEES 

"Have  you  seen  our  glorious  cannon?"  he  was  asking 
me  politely.    (Gloriosen  cannonen) 

There  along  the  roadside  were  the  drab  figures  of  the 
refugies,  still  bowed  under  their  packs,  still  bending  to 
the  ropes  with  which  they  drew  their  carts,  plodding  on 
without  complaint,  without  a  word.  The  rain  was  falling 
drearily  before  the  long,  blinding  rays  of  the  headlights ; 
the  refugies  turned  out  to  let  us  pass.  Now  and  then  one 
of  them,  looking  dumbly  up  and  seeing  the  flag,  touched 
his  cap  in  salute.  Then  their  figures  became  vague 
blurs  in  the  rainy  darkness. 


LII 

HUNGER 

An  artist  friend,  discussing  one  day  the  paintings  of 
the  old  Flemish  school,  those  joyous  canvasses  of  Te- 
niers  and  Jordaens,  and  how  realistically  they  depict  the 
feasting  and  the  frolic  and  the  fun  that  have  gone  on  al- 
ways in  Flanders,  advanced  the  interesting  and  touching 
theory  that  the  Flemish  people  had  suffered  so  much  in 
their  history  that  they  had  to  take  their  fun  where  and 
when  they  could  find  it,  and  abandon  themselves  wholly 
to  it.  I  can  not  say  as  to  that,  but  I  do  know  that  there 
is  deep  in  the  nature  of  the  Belgians  an  incomparable 
spirit  that  bears  them  up  in  adversity,  and  so,  even  after 
Antwerp,  with  their  wonderful  resiliency  they  could  find 
some  light  in  darkness  and  take  heart  of  grace.  The  dis- 
aster, they  began  to  say,  was  not  so  irreparable.  It  hap- 
pens in  the  lives  of  nations,  as  in  the  lives  of  individuals, 
that  a  defeat  which  seems  at  the  time  crushing  sometimes 
proves  in  the  end  to  have  been  a  victory  of  a  sort.  It 
requires  a  large  faith  and  usually  the  perspective  of  his- 
tory to  reach  these  reassuring  conclusions,  but  by  some 
quick,  spiritual  apprehension  the  Belgians  began  to  real- 
ize, dimly  at  first,  that  their  army  had,  after  all,  executed 
a  clever  movement  in  withdrawing  from  Antwerp ;  had 
those  troops  remained  in  the  fortress  they  would  have 
been  taken  like  rats  in  a  trap,  whereas  now  it  was  pos- 
sible that  they  might  join  the  Allies'  left  wing,  or  at 
least  menace  the  German  right  wing — bent  back,  it  was 
said,  as  far  as  Ypres.     The  Belgian  Government  had 

338 


HUNGER 

probably  gone  to  Ostend,  and  there  were  rumours — silly 
enough  as  we  thought — ^that  it  would  go  to  the  Isle  of 
Guernsey. 

There  is  a  story  to  the  effect  that  General  von  Moltke, 
after  the  fall  of  Liege,  implored  the  German  authori- 
ties to  send  the  army  on  into  France  and  not  to  pene- 
trate farther  into  Belgium,  but  that  his  plan  was  rejected 
or  his  advice  imheeded  because,  it  was  said,  Belgium 
must  be  punished  for  her  resistance.  Hence  the  savage 
descent  upon  the  civil  population  of  the  land. 

I  know  nothing  of  the  ground  for  the  von  Moltke 
legend,  but  it  is  not  without  verisimilitude  when  one  an- 
alyses the  series  of  monstrous  deeds  that  have  passed  into 
history  as  the  German  atrocities  in  Belgium.  The  his- 
tory of  those  times  has  not  all  been  written,  and  to  under- 
stand them,  mankind  must  wait  until  all  the  facts  are 
known,  until  all  the  memoirs  have  been  written,  all  the 
indiscretions  committed,  and  the  impartial  judgment  of 
history  rendered.  Civilians,  of  course,  must  not  meddle 
with  that  which  does  not  concern  them  or  express  their 
opinions  about  the  high  art  of  war,  but  it  would  seem 
that  there  is  something,  at  any  rate,  in  this  theory. 

For  the  ironic  spirits  have  their  fun  with  mortals ;  their 
sardonic  laughter  rings  forever  down  the  awful  void; 
what  were  thought  to  be  victories  prove  to  be  defeats 
and  defeats  to  have  been  triumphs.  Major  Lang- 
horne,  of  our  army,  then  a  military  attache  at  Berlin,  in 
Brussels,  a  day  or  so  after  the  city  had  been  abandoned, 
said  that  Antwerp,  if  not  a  victory  for  the  Belgians,  was 
hardly  a  victory  for  the  Germans,  since  in  their  haste 
to  parade  the  boulevards  of  Brussels,  to  have  the  eclat  of 
an  entry  in  the  grand  style  in  the  capital  of  the  little 
nation  they  had  conquered,  and  to  stagger  mankind  with 

339 


BELGIUM 

their  force  and  power,  they  had  left  the  country  open 
westward  to  the  sea  and  allowed  the  Belgian  army  to 
escape  to  the  immortal  glory  of  the  Yser. 

But  whatever  minor  consolation  there  may  have  been 
for  the  people  of  Brussels  in  the  thought  that  the  Ger- 
mans had  made  a  mistake  of  which  history  would  calmly 
speak,  there  was  an  immediate  and  an  intense  preoccu- 
pation, destined  thenceforth  never  to  quit  the  mind  for 
years:  it  was  the  thought  of  famine.  The  wheat  had 
not  come  from  Antwerp  yet.  It  was  even  reported  that 
the  Belgians  in  leaving  the  citadel  had  destroyed  the 
foodstuffs  there,  whereupon  a  German  General  re- 
marked : 

"If  that  is  true  the  whole  Belgian  population  may 
starve !" 

The  Comite  had  made  every  effort  to  procure  food- 
supplies.  Mr.  Millard  K.  Shaler,  in  his  quality  of  an 
American  citizen,  had  gone  to  London  on  behalf  of  the 
Comite  to  buy  grain.  I  had  obtained  a  passierschein  for 
him  from  the  Germans  authorizing  him  to  leave  and  to 
re-enter  Belgium.  In  those  days  travelers,  to  get  out  of 
the  country,  had  to  make  a  great  detour  by  Maestricht, 
and  on  his  way  Mr.  Shaler  was  arrested  and  held  two 
days  in  the  Kommandantur  at  Liege  as  a  spy ;  I  secured 
his  release,  and  he  continued  on  his  journey,  arrived  at 
London,  bought  wheat — but  could  not  get  permission  to 
export  it  to  Holland. 

The  situation,  indeed,  was  rapidly  growing  serious; 
the  supplies  in  the  country  were  sufficient  only  for  a  fort- 
night. Even  on  the  table  of  the  Legation  there  was 
the  grey  bread.  It  was  not  true  that  the  supplies  at 
Antwerp  had  been  destroyed,  and  we  could  continue  our 
efforts  to  find  some  basis  on  which  we  might  contrive 

340 


HUNGER 

to  get  food  in.  Rich  as  the  httle  country  was,  and  as 
intelligently  as  its  fertile  acres  were  farmed,  it  could  not 
produce,  even  in  peace  times,  more  than  one-fifth  of 
what  it  consumed.  For  weeks  committees,  composed  of 
citizens  of  all  the  principal  towns  behind  the  German 
army — Louvain,  Namur,  Charleroi,  Malines — ^had  been 
coming  to  the  Legation,  asking  me  to  patronize  com- 
mittees of  ravitaillement  to  be  organized  in  those  towns 
as  I  had  patronized  the  committees  in  Brussels ;  and  one 
day,  to  enforce  his  arguments,  a  man  came  from  Dinant 
and  laid  on  my  desk  a  loaf  of  mouldy  black  bread — all 
that  the  people  of  the  stricken  town  had  to  eat.  There 
were  priests  from  Louvain  who  came  to  ask  food  for  the 
sinistres  of  their  city;  then  came  a  Liegeois  to  implore 
help  for  his  town;  and  there  was  a  little  girl  asking 
bread  for  herself — that  we  could  give  her  but  it  only  in- 
tensified the  pang  there  always  is  in  the  thought  of  the 
utter  impotence  of  personal  charity  in  the  world.  It 
was,  of  course,  evident  that  local  committees  could  ac- 
complish little  good ;  the  task  would  have  to  be  assumed, 
as  I  told  these  gentlemen,  on  a  large  national  scale,  and 
we  began  to  consider  the  possibility  of  doing  this.  There 
was  food  somewhere  in  the  world,  there  was  plenty  in 
the  granaries  of  that  land  which  loomed  in  such  mystery 
far  off  there  in  the  west — that  land  which  this  old  Europe 
had  never  understood,  and  to  which  now  it  turned  for 
succor  and  help  and  comfort.  There  were  enormous  ob- 
stacles, of  course,  in  the  way  of  getting  it:  there  was 
the  fleet  of  Britain  blockading  the  sea;  there  was  the 
enmity  between  the  Germans  and  the  Belgians.  I  dis- 
cussed the  situation  with  Villalobar,  with  M.  Francqui, 
with  Mr.  Heineman,  and  with  many  others.  We  had 
meetings  and  discussions  in  which  opinion  hung  nebu- 

341 


BELGIUM 

lously  in  solution  for  long  hours,  as  opinion  will  in  com- 
mittees, until  some  one  would  lift  his  eyes  hopefully  and 
exclaim: 

"But  the  Hague  Convention!  According  to  the 
Hague  Convention  it  is  the  duty  of  the  occupying  power 
to  feed  the  population." 

And  then,  with  that  inveterate  vice  of  the  human  mind 
which  persists  in  the  belief  that  a  problem  is  solved  as 
soon  as  it  has  been  reduced  to  formula,  they  would 
sigh  and  sink  back  in  their  chairs  as  though  the  phrase 
sufficed  for  the  deed. 

But,  as  I  reminded  them,  the  Belgians  could  not  eat 
Hague  Conventions,  though  that  seemed,  alas — all  that 
we  had  to  offer  them.  And  then  one  day — ^the  fourteenth 
of  October,  to  be  precise — I  had  a  visit  from  the  Baron 
von  der  Lancken  and  Herr  Hellfrisch,  whose  name  has 
since  been  tolerably  well  known  in  the  German  political, 
as  it  was  then  in  the  German  commercial,  world,  though 
they  are,  in  a  way,  much  the  same  thing.  Mr.  Heineman 
had  known  Herr  Hellfrisch  in  that  commercial  world, 
and  he  had  already  brought  him  to  me  to  aid  in  certain 
unofficial  efforts  I  had  been  making  to  diminish  the  bur- 
den imposed  upon  the  Brussels  bankers  by  the  excessive 
war  contribution  levied  on  the  city.  In  the  course  of  these 
efforts,  I  had  gone  to  see  Herr  von  Lumm,  a  portly, 
blond,  serious  man  whose  closely  shaven  head  was 
clasped  by  great  round  spectacles  rimmed  by  tortoise- 
shell  like  those  that  the  Chinese  and  very  young  Ameri- 
cans wear.  He  was  a  German  banker  who,  some  time 
before  the  war,  had  visited  Brussels,  been  received  every- 
where, shown  through  the  Banque  Nationale,  and  a  ban- 
quet and  a  decoration  had  been  given  to  him.  All  of 
which   indicated  him,  in  the   German  administrative 

342 


HUNGER 

mind,  as  the  very  man  to  be  appointed  chief  of 
the  Bank  Abteilung,  and  it  was  in  that  capacity  that 
he  had  come  to  Brussels,  where  he  was  charged  with  the 
heavy  task  of  collecting  "contributions'*  of  war.  His 
instructions  were  rigid,  it  seemed,  and  he  could  not  re- 
duce the  large  sums  demanded  of  the  bank.  But  the  ef- 
forts, however,  were  not  altogether  lost  for,  in  talking 
about  them  with  my  two  callers  that  day,  they  gave  an 
occasion  to  open  the  discussion  about  food;  if  one 
could  not  effectively  discuss  money,  one  could  discuss 
bread.  In  a  world  as  illogical  as  the  one  in  which  we 
live  one  always  does  something  else  than  that  which  one 
sets  out  to  do,  and  then  persuades  one's  self  that  what 
is  accomplished  is  what  one  intended  from  the  beginning ; 
we  are  not  so  candid  or  so  wise  as  children,  who,  be- 
ginning to  draw  a  picture,  will  tell  you  that  they  do 
not  know  what  it  is  going  to  represent  until  they  get 
it  done.  And  so,  that  afternoon,  when  Baron  von  der 
Lancken  and  Herr  Hellf risch  came  to  see  me,  we  fell  to 
talking  of  other  things,  such  as  my  having  just  then 
been  charged  with  the  protection  of  the  interests  of  Lich- 
tenstein,  for  instance.  The  Baron  laughed ;  nothing  had 
so  amused  him  in  a  long  time.  Prussia,  indeed,  was  still 
in  a  state  of  war  with  Lichtenstein,  and  had  been  ever 
since  1866;  the  little  principality  had  sided  with  Austria 
and  when  the  treaty  of  peace  was  signed  Lichtenstein 
had  been  overlooked. 

And  then  the  question  of  bread  came  up.  The  prob- 
lem was  to  get  food  not  only  for  the  poor  of  Brussels, 
but  for  the  whole  population  of  Belgium.  The  Baron 
said  that  the  German  Government  was  well  disposed; 
that  the  German  authorities  were  ready  to  give  assur- 
ances that  none  of  the  food,  if  it  could  be  brought  in, 

343 


BELGIUM 

would  be  requisitioned  or  seized,  or  in  any  manner  be 
utilized  by  the  German  forces,  but  that  it  would  all  go 
to  the  Belgian  civil  population.  So  much  was  won, 
then,  and  it  was  of  fundamental  importance.  In  the 
meantime — realizing,  as  I  have  said,  the  necessity  of  un- 
dertaking the  work  on  a  national  scale — the  Brussels 
committee,  le  Comite  Central  de  Secours  et  d' Alimenta- 
tion, had  expanded  its  organization.  In  the  hon  mot  of 
M.  Emile  Francqui  a  phenomenon  in  nature  oc- 
curred— the  child  gave  birth  to  the  mother;  the  local 
committee  brought  forth  a  national  committee,  and  the 
Comite  became  le  Comite  National  de  Secours  et  d' Ali- 
mentation, of  which  Villalobar  and  I  continued  to  act 
as  patrons.  It  organized  sub-committees  in  each  of  the 
nine  provinces  of  Belgium;  or,  since  the  two  Flanders 
were  inaccessible,  in  seven  of  the  nine  provinces. 

It  was  a  fortunate  circumstance  that  the  organization 
was  formed  somewhat  on  the  model  of  the  Belgian  gov- 
ernment, the  system  of  which  is  based  on  the  commune, 
the  cell  of  the  whole  organization.  Belgium  is  com- 
posed of  2633  communes  or  municipalities,  each  free  to 
govern  itself  in  all  local  affairs.  There  is  not  a  square 
inch  of  soil  in  Belgium  that  does  not  belong  to  a  com- 
mune, not  a  citizen  that  does  not  form  a  part  of  a  little 
city  or  community,  and  this  whether  it  is  in  the  country 
or  in  the  town,  though,  of  course,  in  a  country  so  densely 
populated  every  commune  has  a  village  as  a  nucleus. 

Each  commune  elects  its  common  council,  which  gov- 
erns the  community  as  do  the  common  councils  of  Eng- 
lish and  American  towns;  indeed,  the  municipal  system 
of  England  and  America  is  derived  from  Belgium.  Out 
of  the  common  council  there  are  chosen  a  hourgmestre, 
or  mayor,  and  a  number  of  echevins^  who  serve  as  heads 

344 


HUNGER 

of  departments,  providing  what  is  in  effect  a  commission 
form  of  government.  The  communes  are  grouped  into 
223  cantons,  the  cantons  into  41  arrondissements  and  the 
arrondissements  are  divided  among  the  nine  provinces. 
Perhaps  it  would  be  more  exact  to  say  that  the  prov- 
inces are  divided  into  arrondissements,  since  the  nine 
provinces  are  co-extensive  with  the  historic  principali- 
ties— the  old  duchies  of  Brabant,  of  Limburg,  of  Lux- 
emburg; the  counties  of  Flanders,  of  Hainaut  and  of 
Namur ;  the  old  bishopric  of  Liege,  etc.  Without  going- 
further  into  detail,  there  are  elective  bodies  for  the  reg- 
ulation of  the  affairs  of  the  cantons,  of  the  arrondisse- 
ments and  of  the  provinces,  and  finally  of  the  nation, 
i.  e.,  the  parliament. 

The  communal  system  is  as  old  as  the  struggle  of  the 
city  to  be  free,  and  it  is  to  it  that  Belgium  owes  her 
genius  for  self-government,  one  with  that  love  of  free- 
dom which  has  kept  the  nation  alive  and  stubbornly  de- 
termined to  contest  her  right  to  liberty  through  succes- 
sive dominations  of  Spaniards,  Austrians,  Dutchmen 
and  Germans.  No  country  without  some  such  funda- 
mental organization  for  uniting  the  people  in  a  common 
ideal,  and  for  expressing  and  satisfying  their  daily  wants 
and  needs,  could  have  survived  such  a  calamity  as  the 
inundation  of  the  German  hordes. 

Thus  when  we  undertook  the  relief  work  in  Belgium 
we  found  ready  at  hand  an  organization  for  distribution 
that  simplified  the  task  and  took  into  account  at  once 
every  needy  person  in  the  land.  While  constitutionally 
they  despised  the  system,  the  Germans  did  not  interfere 
with  the  communal  organization  as  such.  Here  and 
there  they  arrested  a  Burgomaster  or  members  of  the 
common  councils  but  they  respected  the  system  as  a  sys- 

345 


BELGIUM 

tern.  Indeed,  they  could  not  have  governed  the  country 
as  easily  in  any  other  way,  or,  in  the  eyes  of  the  un- 
thinking, as  cheaply  acquired  a  reputation  for  efficiency 
by  claiming  as  a  result  of  their  administration  the  com- 
parative order  that  prevailed — a  condition  that  was  due 
entirely  to  the  schooling  in  self-government  that  the 
Belgians  had  acquired  in  their  communal  system. 

M.  Emile  Francqui  was  chairman  of  the  executive 
committee  of  the  National  Committee,  and  it  was  his 
genius  that  directed  the  Belgian  organization.  He  is  a 
stout,  round  man,  but  with  the  restlessness  of  a  nervous 
temperament.  He  is  dark,  with  black  hair  and  black 
moustache,  and  his  finely  modelled  features,  whose  sensi- 
tiveness is  controlled  by  a  trained  and  powerful  will,  are 
illuminated  by  a  pair  of  handsome,  glowing,  brown  eyes. 
He  is  sociable  and  genial,  but  with  dignified  reserve. 
He  is  one  of  those  men  who,  estimating  the  standards  of 
the  world  at  their  proper  value,  with  no  illusions  as  to 
the  motives  of  most  men  and  indifferent  to  personal  dis- 
tinction, nevertheless  feel  it  as  a  necessity  of  their  na- 
tures to  rule,  to  dominate.  This  interest  takes  the  place 
in  their  lives  of  a  sport:  they  direct  large  enterprises; 
if  they  are  on  juries,  they  dominate  them;  if  they  are 
on  committees  they  dictate  their  action;  if  they  are  in 
politics,  they  manage  their  fellows. 

M.  Francqui  was  wholly  fitted  by  nature,  by  experi- 
ence, and  by  training  for  the  heavy  task.  He  was  a 
director  of  the  Societe  Generale,  one  of  the  largest  banks 
and  financial  organizations  in  Brussels.  He  had  begun 
his  career  as  an  officer  in  the  Belgian  army ;  he  had  been 
with  Stanley  in  Africa,  and  later  became  the  faithful 
lieutenant  of  the  old  King  Leopold  II  in  the  Congo. 
He  had  represented  in  China  the  interests  of  that  re- 

346 


HUNGER 

markable  ruler  and  man  of  affairs,  so  greatly  misunder- 
stood in  our  western  world — a  King  who,  had  he  ruled  a 
larger  domain,  would  have  gone  down  in  history  as  one 
of  the  great  personalities  of  his  age.  M.  Francqui  was 
prominent  in  the  financial  world;  a  man  shrewd  in  his 
judgment  of  men,  polished  by  extensive  travel,  trained 
in  affairs,  with  a  relentless  will  and  untiring  energy. 
And  now  he  devoted  all  his  talents  and  resources  to  the 
suffering  people  of  his  land.  His  tact,  his  wit,  his  good 
humour,  his  perseverance,  solved  many  a  delicate  situa- 
tion. Born  in  Brussels  of  Walloon  extraction  and  full 
of  Walloon  wit  as  well  as  Walloon  shrewdness,  he  was 
the  most  delightful  of  companions.  We  became  friends, 
and  for  the  hard  and  trying  task  which  it  was  our  des- 
tiny to  bear  there  is  the  compensation  of  those  hours  of 
camaraderie,  when  he  would  come  to  my  home  for  a  cup 
of  tea  in  the  afternoon,  or  we  would  meet  in  the  draw- 
ing-room of  his  residence  in  the  Avenue  Louise,  filled 
with  the  trophies  of  his  travels ;  he  would  tell  me  those 
droll  and  delightful  stories  of  Leopold  II,  or  with  his 
keen  observation  comment  on  the  great  events  that  were 
passing,  and  the  foibles  of  the  little  men  who  were  being 
swept  along  by  those  events  like  leaves  in  the  autumn 
wind. 

We  had  arranged  a  meeting  at  the  American  Legation 
for  Friday,  the  sixteenth  of  October,  1914,  to  discuss 
and  if  possible  to  agree  on  some  solution  of  the  whole 
problem  of  ravitaillement.  The  first  thing  to  do  was  to 
secure  the  consent  of  the  British  Government  to  the  im- 
portation of  food;  the  second  was  to  obtain  guarantees 
that  the  food  thus  imported  would  be  free  from  requisi- 
tion by  the  Germans,  and  be  reserved  to  the  exclusive  use 
of  the  civil  population  of  Belgium.    This  done,  the  food 

347 


BELGIUM 

could  be  distributed  by  the  Comite  National,  undev 
patronage  of  the  Spanish  and  American  Ministers.  The 
theory,  like  most  theories,  was  adequate ;  the  great  ques- 
tion was  to  realize  it  in  practice,  and  with  the  two  na- 
tions that  held  the  experiment  in  their  power  just  then 
grappled  in  a  deadly  war,  that  was  a  task  to  daunt  the 
most  resolutely  optimistic. 

Early  in  the  morning  the  Baron  von  der  Lancken 
came  with  Geheimrath  Kaufman;  later  we  were  joined 
by  Mr.  Heineman  and  Mr.  Hulse,  and  for  a  long  time 
we  discussed  the  important  question.  It  was  necessary 
that  some  one  go  to  London  to  lay  the  case  of  Belgium 
before  the  British  Government,  and  already  there  had 
been  the  inevitable  proposal  of  a  large  committee,  to  be 
composed  of  Belgians:  some  thought  the  committee 
should  consist  of  fifteen  members,  and  my  heart  sank, 
as  would  the  heart  of  any  man  who  had  spent  long  hours, 
and  even  years,  listening  to  the  interminable  and  futile 
palaver  of  large  committees;  I  recalled  Tom  Johnson's 
saying  that  the  best  committee  in  the  world  is  a  commit- 
tee of  three,  two  of  whose  members  are  dead.  But  some 
one  must  go.  I  suggested  Baron  Lambert.  Then  Vil- 
lalobar  arrived  and  approved  the  choice  of  Baron  Lam- 
bert, and  sent  his  motor  at  once  to  bring  the  Baron,  who 
came,  screwing  his  monocle  somewhat  dubiously  into  his 
eye  at  the  mention  of  the  difficult  mission  we  had  se- 
lected for  him.  Then  Mr.  Solvay,  M.  Francqui  and  M. 
Emmanuel  Janssen  came. 

They  were  shown  into  another  room.  They  came  for- 
mally to  request  me  to  act  in  the  matter,  but  as  I  was 
already  occupied  with  it  we  brushed  formalities  aside 
and,  since  Belgians  and  Germans  did  not  meet,  we  car- 
ried on  the  discussion  by  passing  back  and  forth,  the 

348 


HUNGER 

Marquis  and  I,  from  one  room  to  another.  Finally  it 
was  agreed  that  the  Baron  Lambert  and  M.  Francqui 
should  go  to  London  to  present  their  country's  case 
there,  and  that  Gibson  should  go,  bearing  letters  from 
Villalobar  and  me  to  our  respective  colleagues  at  Lon- 
don, acquainting  them  with  the  situation  and  requesting 
them  to  use  their  good  offices.  There  were  letters  and 
telegrams  to  be  prepared,  and  we  spent  the  rest  of  the 
day  in  writing  them,  for  they  had  to  be  in  four  lan- 
guages, French,  German,  Spanish  and  English,  and  all 
say  the  same  thing — no  simple  task.  There  were  letters 
from  Villalobar  and  me  respectively  to  the  Spanish  and 
American  Ambassadors  in  London  and  telegrams  to  our 
Governments.  Then  we  prepared  for  Field-Marshal 
von  der  Goltz's  signature  the  letter,  addressed  to  the 
Comite  CentraP — ^the  national  organization  not  having 
been  fully  consummated — in  which  he  guaranteed  that 
the  food  to  be  imported  should  be  free  from  requisition 
and  be  reserved  exclusively  for  the  Belgians.  It  was,  as 
it  were,  the  constitution  of  our  organization,  the  corner- 
stone of  the  edifice  we  were  trying  to  rear,  perhaps  the 
most  important  of  all  the  documents.    It  was  written  in 

^  General  Gouvernement 
IN  Belgien 

Briissel,  den  16.  Oktober  1914 
Auf  die  gefahrige  Zuschrift  vom  heutigen  Tage  beehre  ich  mich 
ganz  ergebenst  zu  erwidern,  dass  ich  das  Unternehmen  des  Comite 
Central  de  Secours  et  d'Alimentation  mit  lebhafter  Genugtuung  be- 
grUsse  und  kein  Bedenken  trage,  hiermit  ausdriicklich  und  formlich 
die  Versicherung  zu  geben,  dass  die  zur  Ernahrung  der  Zivilbevolk- 
erung  von  Belgien  seitens  des  Komitees  eingefiihrten  Lebensmittel 
aller  Art,  ausschliesslich  fiir  die  BedUrfnisse  der  Bevolkerung  Bel- 
giens  vorbehalten  sind,  dass  dieselben  demnach  von  der  Requisition. 

349 


BELGIUM 

German,  and  then  translated  into  French  and  English, 
and  finally,  at  tea  time  the  work  was  done. 

And  then  we  decided  to  appeal  to  the  world  through 
the  President,  and  through  the  King  of  Spain.    Villa- 

seitens  der  Militarbehorden  frei  sein  sollen  und  endlich,  dass  diesel- 
ben  zur  ausschliesslichen  Verfugung  des  Comitees  verbleiben. 

(S.)  Frh.  von  dkr  Goltz, 
General  Feld-Marschall. 
An  das  Comite  de  Secours  et  d' Alimentation,  Briissel. 

GOUVERNEMENT  GeNERAL 
EN    BeLGIQUE 

Bruxielles,  le  16  octobre,  1914. 
Comme  suite  a  restimee  lettre  de  ce  jour,  j'ai  I'honneur  de  con- 
firmer  que  j'approuve  avec  une  vive  satisfaction  I'oeuvre  du  Comite 
Central  de  Secours  et  d' Alimentation,  et  que  j  e  n'hesite  pas  a  donner 
formellement  et  expressement  par  la  presente,  I'assurance  que  les 
vivres  de  tous  genres  importes  par  le  Comite  pour  I'alimentation  de 
la  population  civile,  sont  reserves  exclusivement  pour  les  besoins  de 
la  population  de  la  Belgique,  que  par  consequent  ces  vivres  sont  ex- 
empts de  requisition  de  la  part  des  autorites  militaires  et  qu'ils  re- 
stent  a  la  disposition  exclusive  du  Comite. 

(S.)     Baron  von  der  Goltz, 

General  Feld-Marechal. 
Au  Comite  de  gecours  et  d' Alimentation,  Bruxelles. 

General  Government 
IN  Belgium 

Brussels,  October  16,  1914. 
In  accordance  with  your  esteemed  letter  of  this  date,  I  have  the 
honour  to  confirm  that  I  approve  with  a  lively  satisfaction  the  work 
of  the  Comite  Central  de  Secours  et  d' Alimentation,  and  that  I  do 
not  hesitate  to  give  formally  and  expressly  by  these  presents  the 
assurance  that  foodstuffs  of  all  kinds  imported  by  the  Comite  for 
the  feeding  of  the  civil  population  will  be  reserved  exclusively  for 
the  needs  of  the  population  of  Belgium,  that  consequently  thei?e 
foodstuffs  are  exempt  from  requisition  on  the  part  of  the  military 

350 


HUNGER 

lobar,  telegraphing  to  his  sovereign  raised,  ''a  los  Reales 
pies  de  Vuestra  Majestad"  his  beautiful  appeal.  My 
telegram  to  the  President  was  in  the  following  words : 

The  President, 

Washington. 

In  two  weeks  the  civil  population  of  Belgium,  already  in  misery, 
will  face  starvation.  In  view  of  this  fact,  and  at  the  request  of  the 
Eelief  Committee,  I  venture  to  call  your  attention  to  my  telegram  to 
the  Department,  dated  October  l6th,  in  the  conviction  that  your 
great  heart  will  find  some  way  by  which  America  may  help  to  pro- 
vide food  for  these  hungry  ones  in  the  dark  days  of  the  terrible 
winter  that  is  coming  on. 

Whitlock. 

authorities,  and  that  they  remain  at  the  exclusive  disposition  of  the 
Comite. 

(S)     Baron  von  der  Goltz, 

Field  Marshal  General. 
To  the  Comite  de  Secours  et  d' Alimentation,  Brussels. 


LIII 

REFLECTIONS 

Our  envoys  were  off  in  a  motor-car  at  dawn,  going 
by  way  of  Rosendael,  and  if  we  were  not  quite  sure  of 
their  success  we  had,  at  least,  the  hope  of  it  to  hold  out 
as  comfort  to  those  who  continued  to  come  daily  to  the 
Legation  not  only  with  appeals  for  bread,  but  with  their 
sad  tales  of  personal  trouble  and  distress.  There  was 
among  the  number  an  old  cure,  threatened  with  seizure 
as  a  hostage;  another  was  a  scientist  who  had  been  in 
South  Africa  when  the  war  broke  out  and  had  just  ar- 
rived home,  to  find  his  house  closed  and  his  wife  gone, 
no  one  knew  where.  There  was  an  old  country  doctor — 
I  see  him  still;  he  wore  a  black  frock-coat,  black  gloves 
and  a  tall  hat,  in  the  old  formal  professional  style.  His 
son  had  been  arrested  as  a  spy;  the  boy,  out  of  mere 
foolish  curiosity,  had  taken  notes  near  Ghent  of  passing 
regiments.  The  doctor  could  not  stay  to  hear  his  boy's 
fate ;  he  had  to  hurry  back  because  the  sick  in  his  part  of 
the  country  were  without  attendance.  He  was  heart- 
broken; his  boy  was  at  the  Kommandantur,  and  every 
time  the  old  father  mentioned  the  number  of  the  cell  he 
broke  out  into  fresh  sobs. 

And  there  was  the  teacher  of  diction,  like  most  teach- 
ers, without  pupils;  little  use  just  then  for  learning  in 
the  world,  and  culture,  as  we  understand  it,  no  longer  a 
la  mode — the  only  audible  voice,  indeed,  the  voice  of  can- 
nons! There  was  the  nervous  French  Countess  who 
fluttered  continually  between  the  Spanish  Legation  and 

352 


REFLECTIONS 

the  American  Legation,  to  be  reassured  that  Brussels 
was  not  to  be  bombarded;  and  the  old  gentleman  in- 
terested in  a  Christian  mission — and  incidentally  in  a 
glass-works. 

M.  Lemonnier,  the  Bourgmestre  fcdsant  fonctions, 
was  having  the  first  of  those  troubles  he  was  to  bear  so 
patiently  and  so  bravely  until  at  last  he  was  sent  as  a 
prisoner  to  Germany.  He  had  been  ordered  to  furnish 
a  list  of  Belgian  youths  liable  to  military  service,  that  is, 
la  Garde  Civique,  and  when  he  refused,  the  General 
into  whose  presence  he  had  been  haled  raged  like  a  lion, 
throwing  his  hepi  and  gloves  on  the  floor.  Poor  Lem- 
onnier was  between  two  fires — Germans  before,  local 
pohticians  behind. 

"You  know  how  it  is  with  them,"  he  said.  "No  matter 
what  I  do,  they  could  have  done  better.  II  y  en  a 
toujours  un  qui  est  plus  pur,  un  qui  est  plus  royaliste 
que  le  roi/' 

I  know  that  old  and  contemptible  trick  of  human 
nature,  and  pitied  the  poor  man,  but  the  affair  turned 
out  well  enough ;  the  Germans  gave  assurances  that  the 
members  of  the  Guard  would  not  be  troubled  and  the  list 
was  furnished. 

But  the  life  of  the  city  was  being  somehow  resumed. 
The  shops  were  reopening;  there  were  pedlers  in  the 
streets,  men  shuffling  along  the  Boulevard  Anspach  of- 
fering Griffon  puppies  for  sale;  in  the  window-ledges 
around  the  Grand'  Place  roasted  chestnuts  were  ex- 
posed, and  women  from  carts  sold  fresh  walnuts — signs 
of  autumn  all,  like  the  brown  and  russet  in  the  Bois,  and 
the  leaves  of  Venetian  gold  fluttering  slowly  down. 

"Comme  elles  tomhent  hien!"  as  Cyrano  said. 

But  the  aspect  of  the  city  was  changed  by  the  pres- 

353 


BELGIUM 

ence  of  the  invaders ;  officers  swanking  along  the  boule- 
vards, their  grey  mantles  bellying  in  the  autumn  wind; 
a  German  band  playing  in  front  of  the  Bourse ;  the  Iron 
Cross  on  every  hand,  and  stolid  soldiers  everywhere. 
Occasionally  they  would  stop  and  try  to  play  with  some 
passing  baby — ^whose  mother  would  draw  it  away  in  fear 
and  loathing. 

The  soldiers  seemed  to  be  inoffensive  enough,  though 
now  and  then  I  had  trouble  in  passing  sentinels  at  one 
or  other  of  the  ministries,  and  when  I  asked  Lancken 
why  the  sentinels  had  been  so  ugly  he  said  that  it  was 
because  they  had  mistaken  me  for  an  Englishman. 

There  were  disadvantages  just  then  in  being  mistaken 
for  an  Englishman,  as  Stevens  learned — ^young  Stevens 
the  artist,  about  whom  we  had  been  worrying  ever  since 
he  left  with  Gerbeault  in  August.  He  returned  to  Brus- 
sels in  October  after  terrible  adventures  as  a  prisoner 
within  the  German  lines.  The  Germans  took  him  for 
an  Englishman,  too,  although  he  spoke  with  a  perfect 
Middle  West  accent ;  he  was  tried  twice  and  condemned 
to  death,  and  finally,  when  his  grave  was  dug  and  he 
was  standing  before  it,  he  was  released. 

We  knew  little  of  what  was  going  on  "outside,"  as 
we  were  already  beginning  to  call  the  world  without. 
The  Times  newspaper  was  selling  for  200  francs  a  copy, 
and  we  heard  of  a  restaurant-keeper  who  bought  one  at 
that  price  and  rented  it,  to  be  read  at  his  establishment, 
to  his  customers,  at  10  francs  the  perusal,  making  a 
good  profit. 

It  was  hard  to  escape  the  awful  depression  that  is 
perhaps  the  worst  part  of  war,  even  by  reading  "Cy- 
rano" or  by  watching  the  sunset  from  the  Rue  des  Colon- 
ies and  la  Montague  du  Pare,  and  the  roof  of  the  Maison 

354 


REFLECTIONS 

du  Roi  against  the  rosy  sky,  and  the  Hotel  de  Ville  with 
its  steeple  floating,  as  in  a  golden  mist  shot  through  with 
fire,  and  St.-Miehael,  high  in  the  grey  clouds  that  came 
down  half-way  across  the  western  sky.  How  lovely  was 
Brussels  in  those  days,  and  how  sad — like  a  beautiful 
woman  in  tears !  .  .  .  What  would  be  the  effect  of  such 
depression  on  children  born  and  reared  under  its  influ- 
ence? What  darkling  influence  would  it  have  on  the 
mentality  of  the  next  generation  of  men? 

One  grey,  dismal  Sunday,  a  day  of  terrible  depression, 
in  the  afternoon  I  had  a  note  from  a  religieuse,  a  Sister 
of  some  contemplative  order  of  nuns  who  lived  in  a  con- 
vent in  the  Rue  de  la  Source.  She  was  an  American,  of 
a  family  whose  name  is  famous  in  our  history,  and  she 
was  greatly  alarmed.  I  went  there,  was  shown  into  a 
little  room,  bare  save  for  a  few  religious  prints  on  the 
wall,  and  sat  down  before  an  iron  grill  that  bristled 
with  spikes.  There  was  another  iron  grill  behind  this, 
and  after  ten  minutes  there  was  a  ratthng  of  keys,  a 
tumbling  of  bolts,  and  then  a  dim  light  behind  a  curtain ; 
finally  the  curtain  was  withdrawn,  revealing  two  nuns — 
one,  the  Sister  of  whom  I  have  spoken,  and  the  other, 
the  Reverend  Mother  Superior.  They  were  full  of  all 
the  rumours  that  had  been  current  in  Brussels;  thought 
the  convent  would  be  bombarded,  wished  to  place 
themselves  under  my  protection.  I  told  them  that  they 
might  do  so,  that  they  might  consider  themselves  under 
my  protection  at  once;  assured  them  that  the  convent 
would  not  be  bombarded,  that  nothing  could  befall  them, 
and  left  the  simple  souls  quite  happy. 

''Quest-ce  que  nous  pouvons  faire  pour  vous,  telle- 
ment  nous  sommes  reconnaissantes?"  they  asked.  The 
American  had  almost  forgotten  her  English. 

355 


BELGIUM 

"Souvenez-vous  de  mot  dans  vos  prieresf'  I  replied. 

And  I  went  home  and  read  the  beautiful  last  letter 
in  Golden  Rule  Jones's  book — so  simple,  so  clear,  like 
the  Scriptures;  and  I  thought  how  far  we  were  from 
the  realization  of  his  dream.  Of  what  use  all  the  eif  ort, 
all  the  study  and  toil  to  bring  sweetness  and  light  into 
the  world,  if,  after  all,  this  drilling  foolery,  as  Mr.  Wells 
called  it,  were  to  prevail;  if,  in  the  end,  the  standard 
of  life,  the  standard  of  achievement,  in  a  nation  were  to 
be  that  German  one  which,  had  it  been  practised  by  an 
individual  in  a  western  mining  camp,  would  have  caused 
him  to  be  tarred  and  feathered  and  ridden  out  on  a  rail  ? 

A  scene  comes  back  to  me  out  of  the  dismal  October ; 
we  were  at  St.-Jacques  sur  Caudenberg  for  the  solemn 
requiem  High  Mass  sung  for  the  repose  of  the  soul  of 
the  late  King  Carlos  of  Roumania.  The  old  church  was 
in  heavy  black,  as  on  the  last  occasion  when  I  had  been 
there,  that  other  rainy  day  early  in  the  summer  when 
a  Mass  was  sung  for  the  repose  of  the  soul  of  the  Grand 
Duke  Ferdinand  of  Austria — that  heir  to  the  Hapsburg 
throne  whose  murder  had  made  an  eternal  difference  in 
the  life  of  the  world.  The  diif erence  was  marked  even 
in  this  Mass,  for  while  the  words  were  the  same,  chanted 
in  a  quaVering  voice,  by  an  ancient,  tottering  priest,  the 
very  atmosphere  of  the  church  was  changed.  There 
were  no  brilliant  uniforms,  no  one  in  the  chancel  besides 
the  priests  and  the  secretary  of  the  Nonciature;  Mitili- 
neu,  the  Roumanian  Charge,  was  the  chief  mourner,  and 
the  little  remnant  of  the  diplomatic  corps  assembled  on 
the  right  of  the  great  catafalque,  with  the  bright  little 
flames  of  the  candles  quivering  overhead.  In  front  were 
the  Comte  de  Merode,  Grande  Marechal,  and  the  Comte 
dAerschot,  of  the  King's  household,  and  on  the  left  the 

356 


REFLECTIONS 

Comtess  Hemricourt  de  Grunne,  the  Grande  Maitresse 
of  the  Court.  But,  yes,  there  were  uniforms  after  all — 
those  of  the  German  officers  over  on  the  right  of  the 
church,  General  von  Liittwitz  and  the  Baron  Freys  and 
other  officers  of  the  Staff,  standing  rigidly,  grasping 
their  great  sabres. 

But  there  is  another  Mass  that  I  recall,  on  another 
morning  ;  a  Mass  at  Ste.  Gudule,  sung  for  the  repose  of 
the  soul  of  a  son  of  a  friend.  The  boy,  only  nineteen, 
had  been  a  brigadier  in  the  first  regiment  of  the  Guides ; 
he  had  been  killed  in  battle  and  his  mother  had  gone  to 
fetch  his  body  from  under  the  bridge  where  it  had  lain 
for  a  week.  There  was  a  catafalque  on  which  was  laid 
the  Belgian  fl^ag,  its  colours  softened  by  the  crepe  that 
was  over  it.  I  was  listening  to  the  beautiful  music  when 
suddenly,  there  in  the  radiant  aureola  of  the  tall  white 
crackling  candles,  I  was  smitten  by  the  tear  stained,  an- 
guished face  of  the  lad's  father.  And  then  I  had  a  kind 
of  rage  at  those  who  deliberately  make  war  and  bring 
about  all  this  hideous  waste  of  youth,  this  wanton  cruelty 
to  the  aged.  ...  In  the  midst  of  the  accents  of  the 
sweet  singing  of  the  choir  the  old  church  seemed  to  say : 
"Peace,  little  man.  I  have  stood  here  for  all  these  ages 
and  witnessed  occupation  after  occupation ;  I  was  stand- 
ing here  before  Columbus  went  to  America.  It  was  then 
as  it  is  now — men  quarreling  and  suffering  and  bowing 
here  at  my  altars  with  tear-stained  faces.  The  light  fell 
through  these  windows  as  softly  then  as  now;  nothing 
changes,  not  even  man." 


LIV 

THE  C.  N.  AND  THE  C.  R.   B. 

MEANWHn.E,  in  anxious  impatience  we  were  await- 
ing word  of  our  envoys,  and  one  morning,  from  the  un- 
expected direction  of  Berlin,  came  a  telegram  from  Mr. 
Gerard  saying  that  the  British  Government  had  agreed 
to  let  food  come  into  Belgium  provided  it  was  sent  by 
the  American  Embassy  in  London  to  the  American  Le- 
gation in  Brussels.  Had  their  mission,  therefore,  so  soon 
succeeded  or  had  their  prayers  been  granted  even  before 
they  were  made  ?  We  waited  a  week ;  then  I  had  a  bundle 
of  telegrams  that  had  come  through  The  Hague — an- 
other sign  of  amelioration,  showing  that  communication 
by  way  of  The  Hague  and  Antwerp  had  been  restored. 

One  of  the  telegrams  was  from  our  Ambassador  in 
London,  Dr.  Page,  who  said  that  in  pursuance  of  my  re- 
quest for  aid  he  had  asked  Mr.  Herbert  Clark  Hoover 
to  organize  a  committee  to  raise  funds  and  to  purchase 
food  for  the  Belgian  civil  population.  There  was  a  tele- 
gram also  from  Mr.  Hoover,  known  to  me  then  only  as 
the  American  who  had  been  at  the  head  of  the  commit- 
tee formed  in  London  to  assist  in  repatriating  Ameri- 
cans whom  the  flood  of  war  had  overwhelmed;  it  was 
a  sympathetic  and  heartening  response.  Mr.  Hoover  said 
that  he  had  organized  the  committee,  which  would  set  up 
at  once  the  machinery  necessary  to  the  purchase  and 
shipment  of  the  food;  that  the  organization  had  been 
named  the  "American  Commission  for  Relief  in  Bel- 
gium" ;  that  it  would  be  composed  exclusively  of  Ameri- 

358 


THE  C.  N.  AND  THE  C.  R.  B. 

cans;  and  that,  in  accordance  with  the  condition  laid 
down  by  the  British  Government,  the  food  would  be 
shipped  to  me  as  American  JMinister  at  Brussels,  under 
the  American  flag.  I  sent  a  telegram  expressing  the 
gratitude  of  the  Belgian  people,  of  the  Comite  National 
and  of  myself,  for  this  most  generous  response  to  our 
appeal — a  response  in  which  I  could  have  my  own  patri- 
otic pride  and  satisfaction;  but  I  asked  that  my  friend 
and  colleague,  the  Marquis  of  Villalobar,  be  included  as 
patron  in  a  relation  identical  with  my  own,  and  called 
attention  to  the  efforts  he  had  made  to  aid  the  great 
work.    And  this  was  done. 

There  was  another  telegram,  from  Gibson,  asking  that 
a  thousand  labels  in  German,  showing  the  authorization 
of  the  German  Government,  be  sent  at  once  to  Rotter- 
dam to  be  placed  on  the  shipments  of  food  about  to  be 
sent  in.  This  had  an  encouraging  and  practical  sound, 
and  I  went  at  once  to  bear  the  good  news  to  the  gen- 
tlemen of  the  Comite  National. 

The  next  afternoon,  at  last,  to  my  delight,  the  Baron 
Lambert,  well  groomed  and  smart  as  ever,  came  in,  just 
back  from  London  with  the  good  news,  and  far  too  mod- 
est over  the  success  of  his  mission.  Mr.  Heineman,  who 
had  gone  out  to  Holland  on  the  same  mission,  and  M. 
Francqui  were  to  arrive  in  Brussels  that  evening;  Gib- 
son was  by  way  of  staying  on  in  England. 

Then  Mr.  Millard  K.  Shaler,  who  weeks  before  had 
gone  to  London  to  buy  food,  returned  with  more  de- 
tails of  the  almost  insuperable  difficulties  that  lay  in 
the  way  of  the  prodigious  enterprise  we  had  undertaken 
— difficulties  which,  had  we  been  able  to  foresee  them, 
might  have  deterred  us  from  the  attempt.  We  were  still 
in  a  state  of  innocence  in  those  days,  still  living  in  the 

359 


BELGIUM 

western  world  as  we  had  known  it,  that  world  of  reason 
and  helpfulness.  We  were  soon  to  learn  of  another 
world,  but  we  did  not  know  it  then.  We  thought  that 
if  we  could  procure  enough  food  to  last  through  the 
winter  our  troubles  would  be  over! 

However,  on  Saturday,  the  third  of  October,  there  ar- 
rived at  the  Legation  a  good-looking  young  American 
just  graduated  from  Harvard;  a  lad  with  clear  eyes  and 
a  strong,  square  jaw,  Mr.  Edward  Curtis,  a  grandson  of 
George  William  Curtis.  He  came  through  from  Rot- 
terdam with  letters  from  Captain  Lucey  saying  that  the 
first  shipment  of  food  had  arrived.  He  was  a  welcome 
guest,  this  quiet,  self -restrained  boy  who,  the  first  rep- 
resentative of  the  Commission  to  arrive  in  Belgium,  was 
to  be  the  last  to  leave  when  we  had  changed  our  neu- 
trality for  the  belligerency  that  suited  us  so  much  better, 
and  had  to  go.  I  remember  his  sitting  there  that  autumn 
morning  before  the  little  fire  in  my  room,  and  of  my 
asking  him  the  question  that  was  so  spontaneously  on  the 
lips  of  all  of  us  in  those  days: 

"How  long  is  tlie  war  going  to  last?" 

And  I  remember  how  he  raised  his  eyes  to  mine  and 
said :  ^ 

"Mr.  Hoover," — he  spoke  with  the  respect  that  had 
been  evident  in  his  celebration  of  the  many  virtues  of 
that  gentleman — "Mr.  Hoover  is  making  his  arrange- 
ments on  a  basis  of  three  years." 

Three  years !  It  was  what  Kitchener  had  said.  Could 
it  be  possible?  The  thought  gave  me  pause.  And  yet 
we  were  relieved  because  Curtis  had  come,  and  the  lights 
that  twinkled  far  down  the  boulevard  burned  more 
brightly  that  evening. 

Early  in  November  Gibson  returned  from  the  Odys- 

360 


THE  C.  N.  AND  THE  C.  R.  B. 

sey  that  had  taken  him  to  Havre  and  to  that  little  comer 
of  Flanders  left  to  Belgium  where,  in  a  summer  cot- 
tage in  the  bleak  sand-dunes  by  the  sea,  he  had  seen 
the  King  and  the  Queen,  living  in  the  midst  of  that 
austere  scene,  with  cold  November  winds  blowing  and 
now  and  then  a  shell  screaming  over  their  roof,  support- 
ing their  fate  with  royal  fortitude.  He  brought  back 
the  kindest  of  messages  from  Their  Majesties  and  from 
Baron  de  Broqueville  and  from  my  colleagues  at  Havre, 
and  he  brought  back  the  details  of  the  great  organization 
that  Mr.  Hoover  was  undertaking.  We  had  been  exper- 
iencing the  first  of  those  tremendous  and  complicated 
difficulties  in  carrying  on  the  work  of  feeding  the  Bel- 
gians— difficulties  that  were  destined  to  dog  us  with  an 
almost  maddening  persistence  during  so  many  months 
and  what,  in  their  slow  lapse,  seemed  so  many  years.  The 
organization  of  an  enterprise  that  had  to  devise  ways 
and  means  of  raising  $10,000,000  every  month,  of  pur- 
chasing foodstuffs  in  the  distant  markets  of  the  world — 
in  Argentina,  in  Canada,  in  America — find  the  means 
of  transport  across  troubled  and  dangerous  seas,  and  dis- 
tribute it  to  seven  millions  of  people  in  a  land  where 
the  whole  machinery  of  common  life  had  been  dislocated, 
where  there  were  none  of  the  ordinary  means  of  com- 
munication, and  to  do  all  this  in  the  midst  of  armies  in 
the  field,  was  a  task  that  would  have  seemed  insuperable 
a  few  months  before.  The  C.R.B.,  as  we  were  soon  call- 
ing the  Commission  for  Relief  in  Belgium,  had  offices  in 
London,  in  New  York  and  in  Rotterdam,  and  now  it 
was  to  establish  an  office  in  Brussels,  and  one  of  the  first 
difficulties  was  to  coordinate  its  relations  with  the  gigan- 
tic organization  of  the  C.N.,  as  we  were  soon  calling  the 
Comite  National.    Under  the  conditions  imposed  by  the 

361 


BELGIUM 

British  Government  the  f  ood-stufFs  were  to  be  consigned 
to  the  American  Minister  at  Brussels  and  to  be  dis- 
tributed under  his  supervision ;  he  was  to  be  the  responsi- 
ble witness  of  the  fact  that  there  had  been  strict  ob- 
servance on  the  part  of  the  German  soldiers  of  the 
guaranties  given  by  the  Field-Marshal  Baron  von  der 
Goltz  Pasha,  Governor-General  in  Belgium.  But  since 
the  American  Minister,  even  with  the  best  will  in  the 
world,  could  not  be  ubiquitous,  he  had  to  have  recourse 
to  representation,  and  Mr.  Hoover  hit  upon  the  happy- 
device  of  securing  the  services  of  two  score  young  Amer- 
icans just  then  students  at  Oxford,  young  men  who  had 
proved  their  mettle  by  winning  the  Rhodes  scholarships. 
They  volunteered  for  the  work. 

It  would  have  been  difficult  to  create  such  an  organi- 
zation in  the  ordinary  times  of  peace,  with  everybody 
well  disposed,  but,  in  addition  to  the  physical  obstacles 
created  by  the  chaos  of  war,  there  was  an  atmosphere 
highly  charged  with  its  various  suspicions,  envies,  jeal- 
ousies, hatreds,  and  all  the  meaner  passions  let  loose  in 
mad  fury  in  the  world,  that  made  it  almost  impossible. 
That  the  stupendous  organization,  which  gathered  wheat 
from  the  pampas  of  Argentine,  the  prairies  of  Dakota 
and  the  plains  of  Manitoba,  found  ships  to  carry  it  over 
the  seas  and  to  deliver  it  in  Brussels,  and,  in  addition, 
the  money  to  pay  for  it,  was  so  scientifically  created,  was 
due  largely  to  the  genius  of  Herbert  Clark  Hoover,  but 
the  minor  task  of  keeping  peace  in  the  family  seemed,  by 
some  unkind  fatality,  to  fall  to  the  lot  of  the  person  who 
happened  to  be  American  Minister  at  Brussels,  and 
seemed  to  offer  a  convenient  human  substance  to  absorb 
all  the  numerous  shocks.  Perhaps  it  was  because  that 
substance  was  of  the  very  softness  sometimes  irritably 

362 


THE  C.  N.  AND  THE  C.  R.  B. 

attributed  to  it  when  it  declined  or  failed  to  range  itself 
promptly  and  belligerently  on  one  or  the  other  side  of 
the  disagreements  that  almost  daily  distressed  us — I  do 
not  know ;  all  I  know  is  that  it  seemed  to  be  my  role  for 
a  long  time  to  induce  men  of  various  nationalities  and 
widely  separated  points  of  view  and  different  habits  of 
thought  to  meet  at  the  Legation  and,  over  a  cup  of  tea, 
notoriously  an  innocuous  and  soothing  beverage,  to  com- 
pose 'or  forget  their  differences  and  to  allow  those  poor 
Belgians,  who  had  had  no  quarrel  with  anybody,  to  go 
on  eating. 

The  atmosphere  in  Brussels  during  those  early  days 
in  November  was  not  congenial  to  accords,  and  indeed, 
it  did  not  improve  in  this  respect  as  time  went  on.  The 
Germans  were  not  often  in  conciliatory  humour;  they 
were,  in  fact,  just  then  distinctly  difficult  and  irritable. 
The  German  Kaiser  had  come  to  town  for  a  day  and  had 
installed  himself  in  the  dark  old  palace  of  the  d'Aren- 
bergs,  there  in  the  Petit  Sablon.  It  was  said  that  things 
were  not  going  on  well  toward  the  sea  and  down  near 
Calais  and  Dunkerque ;  and,  as  I  heard  some  time  later, 
the  Kaiser  had  come  within  fifteen  minutes  of  his  death 
by  an  English  aviator's  bomb  at  Thielt.  He  was  in  a 
chateau  there,  so  a  German  officer  told  me.  He  was  to 
lunch  and  then  leave  in  the  imperial  motor  at  one-thirty; 
the  imperial  luncheon,  however,  was  finished  earlier  than 
had  been  expected,  and  the  Kaiser  left  in  the  imperial 
motor  at  one-fifteen.  At  one-thirty  the  aviator  was 
hovering  overhead,  and  the  bomb  dropped  and  exploded 
in  the  chateau.  We  were  not  at  that  time,  however,  so 
expert  in  noting  the  reflex  actions  of  such  incidents  as 
we  became  later.  But,  at  any  rate,  the  Belgian  flag  and 
even  the  flag  of  Brussels  had  been  ordered  down  from 

363 


BELGIUM 

the  Hotel  de  Ville,  and  because  a  Brussels  policeman  in 
a  scuffle  had  struck  a  German  secret  agent  the  Germans 
fined  the  city  of  Brussels  five  million  francs  and  de- 
manded that  all  policemen  be  disarmed  and  that  they 
salute  the  German  officers. 

"What!"  said  one  policeman,  "salute  them — after 
they  killed  my  father  and  mother!" 

But  whatever  the  cause  may  have  been,  the  authori- 
ties were  difficult,  even  those  who  desired  to  be  other- 
wise. We  began  to  encounter  the  phenomenon,  not  new 
in  the  world,  of  the  tyranny  of  a  phrase.  As  Socialists, 
for  instance,  speak  of  class  consciousness,  or  economic 
determinism,  so  the  German  officers  spoke  of  "military 
necessity."  We  would  ask  that  something  be  done,  some- 
thing that  seemed  innocent  and  harmless,  but  no,  it 
could  not  be  done ;  and  when  we  asked  why,  the  words 
"military  necessity"  were  pronounced.  Often  in  one  of 
the  civil  departments  they  would  shrug  their  shoulders 
and  add,  "les  militaires  n'en  veulent  pas/^  and  that  was 
an  end  on  it — no  need  of  further  discussion;  it  was  as 
though  a  prophet  of  old  had  cried,  "Thus  saith  the 
Lord." 

The  guaranties  of  the  Pasha  seemed  clear  enough,  un- 
til "Messieurs  les  militaires^'  pronounced  the  magic  for- 
mula '^une  necessite  militaire;"  then  they  would  become 
something  else.  If  one  was  so  dull  as  not  to  understand 
the  subtle  change  that  had  been  wrought  when  the  phrase 
was  pronounced  the  first  time,  it  was  pronounced  a  sec- 
ond time,  more  loudly,  as  though  reasons,  like  cannon- 
ades, gained  force  by  reiteration,  and  arguments  potency 
by  being  shouted.  We  had  the  guaranties  of  the  Gov- 
ernor-General permitting  the  food  to  enter  and  protect- 
ing it  from  seizure,  but  this  document  was  as  yet  a  life- 

364 


THE  C.  N.  AND  THE  C.  R.  B. 

less  thing;  it  had  to  be  vivified  by  construction  and  by 
application.  To  render  it  practical  there  was  implied 
the  right  of  communication  and  free  circulation  for  the 
delegates  of  the  C.R.B.  I  may  as  well  say  now  that  as 
to  all  the  food  imported  into  Belgium  by  the  C.R.B. , 
during  all  the  time  we  were  there,  the  German  guarantee 
was  enforced  and  respected.  But  there  were  always  an- 
cillary difficulties;  things  were  done,  but  seldom  done 
graciously,  or  in  the  grand  manner.  If  the  Germans 
did  justice  they  did  it  as  though  they  were  granting  a 
favour,  and  if  they  granted  a  favour  they  did  it  with  a 
gesture  that  absolved  the  recipient  of  the  obligation  of 
gratitude.  Our  right  to  circulate,  for  instance,  to  come 
and  go,  was  not  disputed,  was  indeed  admitted,  but  it 
seemed  to  be  impossible  to  procure  passierscheins  which 
when  shown  to  stolid  sentinels,  would  let  one  by.  The 
authorities  would  shake  their  heads,  shrug  their  shoul- 
ders and  say : 

'^Ce  sont  les  militaires!"  ^ 

We  discussed  passierscheins  for  months.  We  had  to 
have  passierscheins  for  Curtis,  who  was  to  come  and  go 
between  Rotterdam  and  Brussels  bearing  the  C.R.B. 
despatches;  we  had  to  have  passierscheins  for  the  dele- 
gates of  the  C.R.B.,  who  were  to  travel  about  in  Bel- 
gium ;  we — that  is  Villalobar  and  I,  had  to  have  a  courier 
of  our  own,  with  diplomatic  immunities ;  and  we  had  to 
have  passierscheins  for  ourselves. 

One  morning  the  Marquis  came  saying  that  he  had 
just  been  told  that  the  privileges  of  the  diplomatists  were 
to  be  restricted,  and  that  they  were  to  have  no  passier- 
scheins at  all!  There  was  a  week  of  wearisome,  irritat- 
ing discussion ;  then  passierscheins  were  promised.  They 
were  prepared,  and  then  it  was  found  that  we  were  to 

365 


BELGIUM 

be  permitted  to  go  only  into  certain  parts  of  Belgium, 
oar  petrol  to  be  subject  to  requisition  at  all  times;  in 
fact,  our  covering  substance  of  diplomatic  privileges  and 
immunities  seemed  to  be  wasting  to  a  thin  garment  that 
would  leave  us  ultimately  as  naked  as  other  mortals.  I 
said  that  if  such  a  passierschein  were  sent  to  me  I 
should  return  it  with  my  compliments. 

Then  a  few  days  later  this  was  changed;  Villalobar 
saw  a  sample  of  the  new  document  and  reported  it 
satisfactory.  But  when  it  came,  permitting  us  to  go  in 
automobile  in  all  parts  of  Belgium  east  of  a  line  drawn 
from  Mons  to  Antwerp,  it  was  for  the  purpose^  of  in- 
specting ravitaillement.  I  refused,  of  course,  to  accept 
it,  and  the  Marquis,  when  it  was  given  to  him,  said: 

''Monsieur,  je  ne  suis  pas  un  marchand  de  farine;  je 
ne  Vaccepterai  pas.'* 

Finally,  however,  to  make  a  long  story  short,  after 
telegrams  had  gone  to  Berlin,  we  received  passierscheins 
compatible  with  our  dignity  and  our  rights.  When  they 
were  turned  over  to  us  and  we  read  that  we  were  au- 
thorized to  travel  where  and  as  we  liked  in  Belgium, 
Villalobar  looked  up  and  said: 

''Sans  farine/' 

He  never  allowed  the  Germans  to  forget  that  unfor- 
tunate phrase  permitting  diplomats  to  travel  for  the 
purpose  of  "inspecting"  the  ravitaillement. 

"Oh,  pour  mes  petit es  affaires  je  ne  derangerais  pas 
un  personnage  au^si  haut  et  eminent  que  vous/'  he  said 
the  next  morning  when  Baron  von  der  Lancken  asked 
him  if  he  could  be  of  any  service,  "moi,  pauvre  petit 
boulanger." 

"Cependant  vous  nous  faites  beamcoup  d'howneur. 
Pendant  la  Revolution  francaise  ces  repuhlicains  appe- 

366 


THE  C.  N/AND  THE  C.  R.  B. 

laient  Louis  XVI,  Marie  Antoinette  et  le  dauphin,  le 
houlanger,  la  houlangere  et  le  petit  TnitronJ" 

And  every  morning,  leaving  headquarters,  he  would 
say  to  Conrad :  "Je  vous  prie  de  presenter  mes  compli- 
ments au  Baron,  en  lui  demandant  combien  de  sacs  de 
farine  il  veut  avoir  aujourd'hui" 

It  was  on  the  fifth  of  November,  after  many  consulta- 
tions, that  we  gathered  at  last  around  the  long  oaken 
table,  there  in  my  cabinet  at  the  American  Legation,  and 
had  the  first  of  those  sessions  that  were  to  be  so  often  re- 
peated in  the  history  of  the  ravitaillement  of  Belgium. 
There  was  the  Marquis  of  Villalobar ;  M.  Solvay,  whose 
snowy  hair  and  beard  framed  the  kindly  face  of  the  hu- 
manitarian; M.  Francqui,  with  his  energy,  his  will,  his 
executive  force  and  vigor;  his  black  eyes  flashing  deter- 
mination or  sparkling  humorously  in  the  constant  sallies 
of  his  wit ;  the  Baron  Lambert,  the  grave  banker  of  the 
old  house  of  the  Rothschilds,  scrupulously  elegant  in  at- 
tire, polished  in  manner,  particular  in  little  things  as  in 
big — he  would  never  have  a  letter  written  on  a  type- 
writer, for  instance ;  he  had  them  all  written  out  by  hand 
in  a  script  that  looked  as  though  it  had  been  from  an 
engraved  plate — and  M.  Emmanuel  Janssen,  a  grand- 
son by  marriage  of  M.  Solvay. 

M.  Francqui  read  a  projet  in  which  had  been  out- 
lined with  order  and  particularity  the  whole  organiza- 
tion; first  of  the  C.R.B.,  with  its  committees  and  head- 
quarters in  London,  New  York  and  Brussels,  its  ship- 
ping station  at  Rotterdam;  then  of  the  C.N.,  with  its 
seat  in  Brussels,  a  sub-committee  in  each  province  and 
in  each  commune,  and  all  the  vast  systems  of  exchange 
for  the  finance  of  the  enterprise — arranged  I  believe  by 
Mr.  Heineman  and  the  Geheimrath  Kaufman.     Thus 

367 


BELGIUM 

slowly  and  with  infinite  pains  the  vast  structure  was 
reared,  with  as  many  complications  and  difficulties,  as 
it  seemed  at  the  time,  as  there  were  at  the  Tower  of 
Babel.  The  ambitious  enterprise,  indeed,  seemed  almost 
as  presumptuous  as  that  earlier  effort,  undertaken  in 
another  period  of  chaos  in  the  world.  There  was  the 
same  confusion  of  tongues,  which  constantly  produced 
its  misunderstandings  and  frictions;  there  were  the 
usual  heartburnings  over  questions  of  precedence  and 
honour  and  credit,  which  no  doubt  contributed  to  the  fail- 
ure of  the  soaring  project  on  the  plain  of  Shinar,  though 
these  feelings  were  suppressed  in  the  larger  hope  of  mak- 
ing our  enterprise  a  success.  One  American,  for  in- 
stance, was  offended,  because  he  said  a  Belgian  had 
written  him  a  letter  in  French,  "insisting"  on  this,  "de- 
manding" that,  "ignoring"  the  other  thing.  The  letter 
was  the  politest  letter  one  could  imagine,  but,  as  was  at 
once  evident,  it  had  been  translated  into  English — by  a 
Dutchman  who  evidently  knew  little  of  either  language. 
The  recipient,  however,  was  mollified  when  I  carefully 
explained  to  him  that  Latin  derivatives  did  not  always 
have  the  same  value  in  French  and  English,  and  that  "in- 
sist," "demand,"  "ignore,"  in  French  do  not  possess  quite 
the  peremptory  significance  that  they  do  in  English. 

Aside  from  the  larger  physical  difficulties  and  the 
political  difficulties,  there  were  those  perplexing  prob- 
lems that  arise  out  of  the  insoluble  mystery  of  human 
personality;  there  were  antipathies  for  which  the  pos- 
sessors themselves  could  have  given  no  reason.  I  shall 
always  recall  with  something  like  horror  the  long  hours 
of  discussion  with  a  certain  fellow-citizen  who  wished 
everything  to  be  done  by  everybody  in  his  way  and  in  no 
other;  he  was  not  quite  sure  just  how  it  should  be  done 

368 


THE  C.  N.  AND  THE  C.  R:  B. 

himself,  and  when  in  despair  I  told  him  to  proceed  at 
once  and  carry  out  his  plan  of  organization  with  a  free 
hand,  it  seemed  that  he  had  no  plan.  He  would  sit  for 
hours  at  the  Legation  trying  to  convince  me,  and  I  never 
could  be  sure  of  what  he  was  trying  to  convince  me.  The 
worst  of  him  was  that  he  used  long  sentences,  without 
verbs,  which  was  maddening.  Finally,  when  every  one 
else  refused  to  have  more  to  do  with  him,  I  said  that  he 
might  be  attached  to  me,  which  did  not  seem  to  be  such 
a  sacrifice  since  he  was  already  that;  but  when  Mr. 
Hoover  came  he  cut  that  Gordian  Knot  in  his  efficient, 
executive  manner  and  ordered  the  man  back  to  Lon- 
don, where,  shortly  afterwards,  it  was  discovered  that  the 
poor  fellow's  mind  was  aifected. 

There  were  troubles  with  stubborn  Dutch  skippers — 
four  of  them  brought  law  suits  against  me  personally — 
and  the  appalling  intricacies  of  bills  of  lading;  and  when 
all  these  difficulties  were  composed,  there  would  be  arti- 
cles in  the  press  in  England  and  America  to  answer — 
sensational  stories  to  the  effect  that  the  food  to  be  sent 
in  would  be  confiscated  by  German  troops,  and  they 
well-nigh  wrecked  the  work!  That  the  great  organiza- 
tion, the  one  constructive  organization  left  in  the  world, 
was  got  into  such  perfect  and  efficient  order  at  last  was 
due  to  the  union  of  such  efficient  minds  and  wills  as  those 
of  Emile  Francqui  and  Herbert  C.  Hoover,  though  each 
of  the  others  contributed  his  share  of  real  ability,  of  pa- 
tience, of  good  will,  and  of  a  -desire  to  serve  humanity. 
And  it  was  worth  all  it  cost  of  pain  and  effort  when 
one  evening  a  telegram  came  from  Rotterdam  saying 
that  grain  was  being  sent  to  Liege  in  charge  of  Captain 
Sutherland,  military  attache  at  The  Hague,  and  we 
coijld  say  that  food  was  at  last  coming  into  Belgium! 

369 


THE  ARREST  OF  THE  ENGLISH 

In  the  first,  and  in  many  respects  the  best,  of  his  short 
stories,  "Boule  de  Suif,"  which  with  the  remorseless  pre- 
cision of  the  author's  impeccable  and  cynical  art,  depicts 
the  incredible  meanness  of  hmnan  nature,  Guy  de  Mau- 
passant sums  up  in  a  phrase  the  essential  spiritual  sig- 
nificance of  the  Prussian  occupation  of  Normandy  in 
1870  when  he  says: 

"II  y  avait  cependant  quelque  chose  dans  Voir,  quelque 
chose  de  subtil  et  d'tnconnUj  une  atmosphere  etrangere 
et  intolerable,  comme  une  odeur  repandue,  Vodeur  de 
Vinvasion" 

As  in  France  in  1870  so  in  Belgium  in  1914.  It  was 
the  atmosphere,  the  moral  odour  of  invasion,  that  was 
hardest  to  bear.  To  those  who  had  been  used  all  their 
lives  carelessly  to  breathe  its  air,  liberty,  now  that  it  was 
lost,  became  a  very  real  and  beautiful  thing.  It  was 
always  galling  and  at  times  maddening,  even  for  us  who 
were  the  most  privileged  in  the  land,  to  have  every  de- 
sire, every  impulse,  every  right,  obstructed  by  a  verbo- 
ten.  At  every  prominent  corner  in  town  there  were 
German  sentinels  with  red  flags,  great  placards  labelled 
"Halter  and  guns,  their  long  bayonets  fixed.  Every 
one  must  have  passierscheins  and  personal  Ausweis  and 
we  floundered  in  a  morass  of  regulations  that  made  life 
an  intolerable  burden.  Much  has  been  written  of  the 
cleanliness  and  order  of  German  cities — I  have  written 
some  of  it  myself;  but  I  should  rather  live  in  a  city  as 

370 


THE  ARREST  OF  THE  ENGLISH 

dirty  as  some  I  might  name  in  certain  parts  of  the  Con- 
tinent, governed  by  a  machine  as  corrupt  as  some  I  have 
heard  of  on  our  own  side  of  the  Atlantic,  composed  of 
the  most  renowned  and  reprehensible  of  our  bosses,  and 
have  liberty  as  one  does  have  it  in  them,  than  to  dwell  in 
one  of  those  cities  of  Germany,  clean  and  regulated  to 
the  last  degree,  of  course,  but  with  their  Ingangs  and 
Ausgangs,  wholly  without  charm,  with  the  institutional 
odour  of  a  penitentiary. 

It  came  on  us  gradually,  a  slow  closing  in  of  the  re- 
morseless and  inflexible  grip  of  steel.  To  understand  it 
one  must  understand  the  Belgian  cities,  full  of  civic  pride 
and  civic  virtue,  and  full  of  liberty,  too.  They  are  free 
cities,  and  after  due  reflexion  I  should  say  that  they  are 
perhaps  the  best-governed  cities  anywhere  in  this  world 
precisely  because  they  govern  themselves,  and  what  is 
more,  because  they  have  a  pride  in  themselves,  a  con- 
scious, collective,  communal,  civic  pride.  To  understand 
it,  too,  one  must  take  into  account  the  Belgian  love  of 
democracy,  the  Belgian  love  of  liberty.  The  King  is 
not  King  of  Belgium,  he  is  King  of  the  Belgians — Rot 
des  Beiges;  there  is  a  vast  difl*erence.  This  love  of  lib- 
erty was  developed  in  the  democratic  school  of  the  com- 
mune; it  was  the  commune  again  resisting  at  Liege,  at 
Dixmude  and  the  Yser. 

Each  of  the  cities  of  Belgium  has  its  marked  person- 
ality, its  distinct  individuality;  each  has  its  peculiar 
charm,  almost  its  own  customs.  Bruges,  Ghent,  Ant- 
werp, Brussels,  Liege,  all  lovely,  full  of  poetry  and 
romance,  are  yet  all  difl*erent,  as  sisters  in  one  family 
are  different.  And  they  are  very  proud — proud  of  their 
history,  proud  of  their  beautiful  city  halls  and  public 

371 


BELGIUM 

monuments ;  proud  of  their  Burgomaster  if  he  looks  well 
in  the  red  scarf,  proud  of  their  liberty  and  fierce  in  their 
independence.  Attacked  from  the  outside,  their  burgers 
all  stand  together — Catholic,  liberal,  socialist,  Flemish 
and  Walloon.  The  cities  are  scrupulously  clean :  clean- 
liness, indeed,  is  a  Belgian  trait;  there  is  an  ordinance 
or  by-law  in  Brussels  which  forbids  people  to  wash  their 
sidewalks  or  the  fronts  of  their  houses  after  10  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  otherwise  the  splashing  and  mopping 
would  go  on  all  the  time. 

The  Germans  sought  to  introduce  German  ways  and 
German  regulations — tried  to  make  them  over,  and  to 
make  over  the  people  in  them.  The  way  to  do  this,  they 
thought,  was  to  issue  orders  and  to  publish  them  in 
affiches  on  the  city  walls,  or  to  give  paternal  counsel, 
like  that  advice  of  the  Pasha  to  the  people  to  save  their 
money  and  to  put  it  in  the  savings  banks,  where,  he  said, 
it  would  be  respected — advice  given  at  the  very  moment 
when  levies  were  being  imposed  on  all  the  cities  and 
provinces  in  the  land! 

Not  a  day  passed  without  a  new  and  vexing  regula- 
tion. In  an  affiche  posted  on  the  sixth  of  November 
there  was  an  avis  which,  by  way  of  proving  the  paternal 
interest  of  the  Government  in  the  people,  said  that  the 
German  Government  had  done  all  it  could  to  get  food 
and  fuel  for  the  Belgians,  urged  the  people  to  return  to 
their  usual  employments,  and  advised  the  communal  au- 
thorities not  to  give  money  to  anybody  who  would  not 
work,  and,  in  the  third  place,  announced  that  on  and 
after  the  eighth  of  November  the  affairs  of  life  would  be 
regulated  by  normal  time,  which  was,  of  course,  German 
time — fifty-six  minutes  earlier  than  Belgium  time,  which 

372 


THE  ARREST  OF  THE  ENGLISH 

was  Greenwich  or  English,  and  prevailed  all  over  the 
west  of  Europe.^ 

The  pubhc  clocks  were  duly  advanced,  but  nobody 
in  Brussels  paid  the  slightest  attention;  every  one  con- 
tinued to  regulate  by  Vheure  beige  such  affairs  of  life 
as  were  left  to  him.  Turning  into  the  Place  de  la  Mon- 
naie  from  the  Rue  des  Fripiers  one  afternoon,  I  saw  two 
women  stop ;  one  asked  the  hour,  and  the  other,  glancing 
up  at  the  clock  which  marked  seven  o'clock,  said  in- 
stantly, "It's  six  o'clock."  It  was  like  that  everywhere, 
though  for  us  of  the  Legations  there  was  a  complication: 

^  Avis 

L'administration  militaire  allemande  a  fait  tout  son  possible  en 
prenant  soin  de  faire  fournir  et  parvenir  a  Bruxelles  des  vivres  et 
du  charbon  pour  la  population  de  Tagglomeration.  Dans  ce  but, 
les  chemins  de  fer  vicinaux  ont  repris  le  service  dans  les  environs 
de  la  ville  et  on  a  facilite  de  toute  fa^on  aux  personnes  ehargees  du 
ravitaillement  raccomplissement  de  leur  tache.  Neanmoins,  I'in- 
vitation  a  reprendre  I'ouvrage  n'a  pas  encore  ete  suivie  par  la  popu- 
lation dans  I'etendue  desirable. 

Je  recommande  de  la  maniere  la  plus  energique  aux  differentes 
communes  de  Vagglomeration  hruxelloise  de  ne  plus  distribuer  gra- 
tuitement  des  vivres  a  des  hommes  auxquels  on  peut  prouver  qu'ils 
ont  I'occasion  de  travailler,  mats  qu'ils  n'en  proftent  pas. 

Puisque  les  chemins  de  fer  et  la  poste  se  reglent  deja  sur  I'heure 
normale  de  I'Europe  centrale,  cette  heure  entrera  en  vigueur  pour 
toute  I'agglomeration  bruxelloise  des  le  8  novembre  1914.  Ce  jour- 
la  toutes  les  horloges  sont  a  avancer  d'environ  56  minutes.  L'heure 
exacte  est  donnee  par  les  horloges  des  gares. 

Des  le  8  de  ce  mois,  les  restaurants,  cafes  et  debits  de  boissons 
sont  a  fermer  seulement  a  11  heures  du  soir  (heure  allemande). 

Bruxelles,  le  6  novembre,  1914. 

Le  gouverneur  de  Bruxelles, 

Baron  von  Luttwitz, 

General. 
373 


BELGIUM 

when  we  had  an  appointment  with  a  Belgian  we  had  to 
remember  Belgian  time,  and  in  speaking  to  a  Belgian 
one  must  remember  not  to  refer  to  Vheure  allemande. 
The  fact  gave  rise  at  once  to  a  new  example  of  la  zwanze 
hruxelloise: 

"The  Kaiser  says,  'Advance  on  Paris/  but  they  don't 
advance.  Then,  'Advance  on  Calais,*  but  they  don't 
advance.  Then  'Advance  on  Cracow,'  but  they  don't 
advance  there  either;  then  he  says,  'Advance  the  Brus- 
sels clocks  one  hour !'  " 

The  citizens  of  other  countries  at  war  with  Germany 
were  subjected  to  special  regulations.  There  was  a  strict 
control ;  they  had  to  report  at  the  Meldeamt  each  week. 
But  this  was  not  enough ;  one  evening  Mr.  Grant- Wat- 
son, Secretary  of  the  British  Legation,  who  had  elected 
to  remain  in  Brussels,  came  to  the  Legation  from  the 
Union  Club  and  reported  that  the  English,  calmly  sit- 
ting there  over  their  whiskey-and-soda,  were  concerned 
by  a  report  in  the  German  newspapers  that  all  English- 
men in  Germany  between  seventeen  and  fifty-five  were 
to  be  interned  as  prisoners  of  war.  The  British  in  Brus- 
sels thought  that  the  rule*  would  apply  to  Belgium.  We 
heard  no  more  of  it  for  a  week ;  then  I  was  told  officially 
that  all  British  citizens  between  the  ages  of  seventeen  and 
fifty-five  were  to  be  arrested — ^this,  as  was  said,  in  retali- 
ation for  the  measures  taken  in  England  against  the 
German  residents  there.  I  filed  a  letter  of  protest  and 
spoke  with  the  officials ;  they  said,  while  personally  they 
regretted  to  have  to  take  this  step,  public  opinion  in 
Germany — and  Messieurs  les  militaires — forced  them 
to  do  so.  I  asked  that  Mr.  Grant- Watson  and  the  Brit- 
ish Consul,  Mr.  JefFes,  and  his  son,  who  was  Vice-Con- 
sul,  be  exempt,  and  was  told  that  they  would  be. 

374 


THE  ARREST  OF  THE  ENGLISH 

A  few  evenings  later,  the  Reverend  Mr.  H.  Stirling 
T.  Gahan  was  arrested.  I  succeeded  in  securing  the 
release  of  the  chaplain  and  of  two  English  priests  of  the 
Catholic  church  who  had  been  arrested  with  him,  but 
it  was  all  that  I  could  do,  and  the  arrests  of  the  others 
continued,  right  and  left,  as  fast  as  German  soldiers 
could  find  them.  Some  escaped  in  various  disguises — 
one  as  a  vendor  of  mussels,  a  delicacy — according  to 
some  tastes — then  in  season,  but  for  most  of  them  there 
was  no  escape,  and  they  were  confined  in  the  ficole  Mili- 
taire.  In  the  midst  of  this  search  German  soldiers 
visited  the  Royal  Golf  Club  of  Ravenstein  and,  finding 
no  Englishmen  there,  broke  up  the  golf -clubs  belonging 
to  Englishmen  and  seized  their  clothing. 

And  then  one  morning  at  German  headquarters  I  was 
told,  to  my  surprise,  that  Mr.  Grant-Watson  himself 
was  to  be  arrested  at  the  British  Legation. 

"But  you  cannot  enter  the  British  Legation,"  I  said; 
"it  is  under  my  flag." 

And  there  was  a  long  discussion.  Finally  the  Baron 
von  der  Lancken  asked  that  Mr.  Grant- Watson  him- 
self come  and  discuss  the  question  with  him,  saying 
that  some  arrangement  might  possibly  be  made  to  put 
him  on  his  parole  or  even  to  allow  him  to  go  home  to 
England.  The  official  who  had  told  me  that  Mr.  Grant- 
Watson  and  the  Messrs.  Jeffes  would  not  be  molested 
made  an  apology  for  the  treatment  of  the  English;  he 
told  me  how  he  detested  it,  and  how  sorry  he  was  that  he 
had  not  been  more  successful  in  securing  the  promised 
privileges.  There  was  nothing  he  could  do — it  was  a 
"military  necessity"  and  Messieurs  les  militaires  had 
been  in  a  terrible  state  ever  since  the  narrow  escape  of 
the  Kaiser  at  Thielt  a  few  days  before. 

375 


BELGIUM 

Mr.  Grant- Watson,  when  the  other  representatives  of 
belligerent  countries  had  left,  had  remained  in  Brussels 
of  his  own  will;  he  had  been  going  about  town  every- 
where for  weeks,  as,  of  course,  the  Germans  well  knew. 
I  had  frequently  urged  him  to  go  but  he  would  not  do 
so,  and  I  had  no  quality  to  urge  any  action  upon  him. 
When  the  question  of  his  fate  arose  I  could  only  tell  him 
of  the  Baron  von  der  Lancken's  suggestion  and  leave 
him  to  decide  on  the  course  he  would  adopt.  He  said 
he  would  go  at  once  to  see  the  Baron,  and  asked  me  to 
accompany  him.  And  so  we  went  over  that  afternoon 
after  tea,  and  when  the  introduction  was  concluded — the 
meeting  was  cold  and  difficult;  they  bowed  formally 
but  did  not  shake  hands — Baron  von  der  Lancken  said 
that  the  situation  was  very  painful  and  disagreeable  for 
him  because  he  was  under  orders  to  send  Mr.  Grant- 
Watson  to  Berlin.  I  could  not  forbear  expressions  of 
my  surprise. 

*'Je  vous  demande  pardon  mais  je  vous  cd  promts  plus 
que  je  ne  pouvais  faire/'  said  the  Baron. 

I  asked  that  Mr.  Grant- Watson  be  allowed  to  leave 
on  his  parole  that  night  and  return  on  the  morrow ;  this 
the  Baron  accepted.  Finally  ISIr.  Grant- Watson  agreed 
to  report  the  next  morning  at  eleven  o'clock,  and  Baron 
von  der  Lancken  said  that  he  would  give  him  the  best 
apartment  in  the  £cole  Militaire  and  hold  him  there 
until  he  was  sent  to  Berlin.  I  then  took  the  Baron  von 
der  Lancken  aside  and  spoke  with  him  alone,  and  at 
length  he  promised  to  telegraph  to  Berlin  in  an  effort  to 
make  arrangements  that  would  make  it  unnecessary  to 
send  Mr.  Grant- Watson  to  Berlin,  holding  him  mean- 
while garde  a  vue  at  the  £cole  Militaire. 

376 


THE  ARREST  OF  THE  ENGLISH 

The  Baron  told  me  that  the  JefFes,  too,  were  to  be 
arrested. 

Unyielding  as  he  had  been,  however,  as  it  seemed  to 
me,  the  Baron  was  reproached  by  the  military  men  for 
not  having  been  more  severe,  and  for  having  allowed  Mr. 
Grant- Watson  to  go  at  all.  And  late  that  night  the 
military  men  sent  to  me  asking  me  to  give  my  "word  of 
honour"  for  him.  I  gave  it,  of  course,  and  with  my  com- 
pliments to.  Messieurs  les  militaires  sent  word  to  say 
that  as  Mr.  Grant- Watson  was  an  English  gentleman 
I  was  perfectly  satisfied  with  any  assurances  he  might 
give.  The  next  morning  Mr.  Grant-Watson  went  to  the 
ificole  Militaire. 

Mr.  Kimura,  Secretary  of  the  Japanese  Legation,  had 
remained  in  Brussels  on  the  express  understanding  that 
no  objections  would  be  made  to  his  presence,  and  now  he 
too  was  to  be  arrested;  and  that  same  morning  a  Ger- 
man functionary  came  bearing  the  request  that  I  "bring 
in"  the  Japanese  secretary.    I  sent  back  this  as  a  reply: 

"Je  vous  prie  de  presenter  mes  compliments  et  dire 
que  je  ne  suis  pas  gendarme/' 

Kimura,  however,  was  notified  from  the  Legation  of 
what  was  in  store  for  him,  and  at  the  news  he  smiled  and 
went  at  once  himself  to  the  Zivilverwaltung,  and  was 
sent  to  the  l^cole  JNIilitaire. 

The  next  morning  I  received  a  call  from  the  clergy- 
men whose  release  had  been  secured ;  they  came  to  thank 
me,  and,  as  one  of  them  said,  to  call  my  attention  to  an 
outrage  that  was  being  perpetrated  by  the  Germans.  I 
asked,  with  the  gravest  apprehensions,  what  the  outrage 
was. 

"Why,"  said  the  clergyman,  "they  have  confined  the 
gentry  with  the  commonalty!" 

377 


BELGIUM 

It  was  even  so.  When  on  that  morning  of  dismal  rain 
I  drove  to  the  £cole  Militaire  I  found  twenty  English- 
men gathered  in  a  large  hall,  sitting  at  meat  at  a  large 
table.  Around  the  walls  were  iron  cots  on  which  they 
slept.  There  had  been,  indeed,  some  recognition  of  their 
quality,  for  certain  jockeys,  of  which  there  are  always 
many  in  Brussels,  had  been  removed,  but  conmionalty 
or  gentry,  it  was  not  pleasant  to  be  huddled  together, 
and  the  facilities  for  bathing  were  few,  though  they  were 
accepting  their  lot  with  the  ever-admirable  British  calm- 
ness and  dignity.  Mr.  Grant-Watson,  in  his  corner, 
did  call  my  attention  to  the  indubitable  fact  that  he  had 
not  been  given  the  private  room  due  his  rank;  it  was 
the  result,  it  seemed,  of  his  having  refused  to  shake  hands 
with  the  Lieutenant  in  charge:  "One  could  not  shake 
hands  with  them,  could  one?"  But  I  asked  Baron  von 
der  Lancken  and  the  little  Lieutenant  to  give  him  a 
room  and  to  make  him  more  comfortable,  which  they 
promised  to  do,  and  did. 

I  went  to  see  Kimura,  installed  from  the  first  in  his 
private  room.  On  one  side  there  was  an  iron  bed,  and 
ranged  along  the  floor  beside  it  a  long  row  of  Japanese 
slippers  and  sandals.  A  kimono  was  thrown  over  the 
bed ;  there  were  cigarettes  and  an  ash-tray  on  a  little  ta- 
ble at  the  head ;  and  there  was  a  table  set  forth  with  the 
noon  day  meal.  I  asked  if  there  was  anything  that  I 
could  do  for  him. 

"No,"  he  said,  "I  have  a  nice  apartment,  a  soldier's 
room;  I  have  rice,  meat,  bread,  beer."  I  asked  him  if 
he  wanted  anything.  No,  nothing;  he  had  everything 
man  could  wish,  even  two  hours  in  the  morning  and  two 
in  the  afternoon  to  walk  in  the  courtyard.  He  was  smil- 
ing and  cheerful. 

378 


THE  ARREST  OF  THE  ENGLISH 

"Have  you  anything  to  read?"  I  asked. 

"Oh,  yes." 

I  had  a  curiosity  about  the  books  that  would  while 
away  the  ennui  of  his  honourable  confinement,  and  he 
pointed  to  a  table  where  two  little  volumes  lay ;  I  picked 
one  of  them  up.  It  was  a  Japanese-German  dictionary; 
the  other  was  a  German  grammar. 

"I  study  German,"  he  said,  and  when  Baron  von  der 
Lancken  and  the  Lieutenant  entered  the  room  he  saluted 
them  in  the  military  way,  and  even  managed  to  speak  a 
few  words  to  them  in  their  own  tongue.  A  capable  lit- 
tle race,  this,  which  improves  each  shining  hourl 


LVI 

HATRED   OF  THE  ENGLISH 

The  hatred  the  Germans  bore  the  EngHsh  made  the 
task  of  representing  British  interests  all  the  more  diffi- 
cult ;  the  Germans  seemed  to  have  no  such  bitter  feeling 
toward  the  French,  and  not  so  much  toward  the  Bel- 
gians, though,  according  to  the  well-known  law  of  moral 
reaction,  the  more  they  wronged  the  Belgians,  the  more 
bitter  they  became  in  their  feeling  toward  them.  But 
the  hatred  of  the  English'^was  a  wild,  implacable  thing, 
not  to  be  overcome.  It  had  a  quality  almost  personal  in 
its  intensity.  ^ 

"We  are  going  to  continue  this  war,"  said  a  German 
official  to  me,  "until  one  can  travel  around  the  earth 
without  seeing  Englishmen  who  act  as  if  they  owned  it." 

"We  shall  destroy  England  if  it  takes  twenty  years," 
said  a  General  to  me  one  evening;  his  eyes  blazed  wrath 
and  he  clefhched  his  fists  spasmodically. 

"When  our  men  take  English  prisoners,"  he  went  on 
to  say,  "the  officers  dare  not  turn  their  backs  an  instant, 
lest  the  men  kill  them." 

This  hatred  was  shown  even  in  the  smallest  things. 
There  was  scarcely  a  German  officer,  for  instance,  who, 
as  a  part  of  that  marvellous  preparation  of  the  German 
nation  for  this  very  enterprise  in  which  they  were  en- 
gaged, had  not  mastered  the  English  language;  they 
could  speak  it  almost  as  well  as  they  could  speak 
French;  some  of  them  had  been  to  Oxford  or  Cam- 
bridge and  spoke  with  the  accent  of  those  schools,  but 

380 


HATRED  OF  THE  ENGLISH 

rnow  that  the  moment  had  come  to  use  it  they  made  it 
ahnost  a  point  of  honour  not  to  speak  it  at  all. 

When  the  prisoners  at  the  Ecole  Militaire  had  all 
been  sent  to  Ruhleben  the  agents  of  the  Kommandantur 
began  to  interfere  with  the  administration  of  the  British 
Charitable  Fund,  an  organization  which  for  long  years 
had  aided  destitute  British  folk  in  Belgium.  The  polizei 
hunted  the  trustees  of  the  Fund  from  one  place  to  an- 
other, and  the  poor  could  not  get  the  little  charity  that 
was  being  doled  out  to  them. 

And  then  another  complication  arose  which  for  a 
time  threatened  to  be  more  serious.  Down  at  Mons 
there  was  an  English  ambulance  in  charge  of  the  Hon- 
ourable Angelina  Manners  and  of  Miss  Nellie  Hozier, 
and  after  the  retreat  of  the  English  from  Mons  they  and 
their  corps  of  eight  nurses  had  remained  on  there.  Late 
in  November  I  arranged  to  secure  laissez-passer  for 
them  to  return  to  England,  and  the  necessary  authoriza- 
tion having  been  obtained,  I  asked  Mr.  Jack  Scranton, 
a  young  American  then  in  Brussels  as  a  guest  of  Gib- 
son, to  go  down  to  JVIons  to  escort  the  nurses  back  to 
Brussels. 

He  went,  armed  with  all  the  documents  and,  arrived 
at  Mons,  he  showed  his  papers  and  explained  his  mis- 
sion to  the  German  Commandant,  who  snatched  his  pa- 
pers from  him,  and  not  only  arrested  him  but  arrested 
all  the  young  women  in  the  ambulance,  and  threw  them 
into  a  common  prison.  The  German  officer  shook  his 
fist  at  the  poor  girls,  threatened  them  with  all  kinds  of 
terror  in  retaliation  for  what  the  Germans  were  said  to 
be  suffering  in  England,  and  refused  to  listen  to  Scran- 
ton. 

381 


BELGIUM 

"As  for  the  American  Minister  at  Brussels,"  said  the 
officer,  '^je  mi' en  f ^ 

Thus  Scranton  reported  when,  the  following  day,  the 
officer's  ridiculous  rage — Jahzorn — Shaving  cooled,  he 
was  permitted  to  return  to  Brussels.  I  went  to  see 
Baron  von  der  Lancken  and  asked  him  to  send  an  intel- 
ligent officer,  if  one  could  be  found,  with  Scranton  to 
bring  the  girls  back.  He  said  he  would  telephone.  The 
next  morning  we  heard  that  the  girls  were  to  have  a 
"hearing" — as  though  they  were  criminals.  Then  I  had 
word  from  Mons  that  the  English  nurses  were  in  very 
real  danger.  I  went  over  to  the  Germans;  Baron  von 
der  Lancken  had  gone  to  Bruges,  but  I  saw  Baron 
Freys,  and  told  him  that  I  had  had  enough  of  the  Mons 
affair,  that  the  Kommandantur  there  had  torn  up  the 
passports  which  he.  Baron  Freys,  had  given,  had 
spoken  insultingly  of  me,  and  that  I  could  endure  it  no 
longer.  I  showed  him  the  Geneva  Convention  which 
plainly  set  forth  the  duty  of  the  Germans  to  let  these 
nurses  go  home,  and  I  insisted  upon  their  being  brought 
to  Brussels  at  once.  Baron  Freys  was  always  and  in- 
variably polite,  obliging  and  correct;  he  ^ot  into  tele- 
phonic communication  with  Mons,  and  in  five  minutes 
had  arranged  it;  the  nurses  were  to  be  released.  The 
Baron  gave  me  a  note  to  the  Adjutant  down  there,  and 
the  next  morning  I  sent  de  Leval  to  bring  the  young 
ladies  back.  It  was  a  moment  of  exquisite  relief  when, 
the  next  afternoon,  my  chauffeur  arrived  in  the  car  we 
had  sent  to  Mons  bringing  one  of  the  nurses.  Miss 
Beatrice  Waters,  and  assured  me  that  the  others  were 
coming  with  de  Leval  on  the  tram.  Miss  Manners  and 
Miss  Hozier,  with  all  the  nurses,  arived  at  tea  time,  all 
glowing  with  the  joy  of  the  very  dangerous  experience 

382 


HATRED  OF  THE  ENGLISH 

which  they  would  view  only  as  a  lark.  Three  days  later, 
with  passports  for  Holland,  via  Aix-la-Chapelle,  they 
bade  us  good-bye  and  went  away,  excited  with  the 
thought  of  being  home  for  an  English  Christmas.  They 
reached  London  for  the  festival  —  though  after  a 
voyage  longer  than  they  had  expected,  for  at  Aix-la- 
Chapelle  the  German  authorities  had  changed  their 
route  and  sent  them  around  by  Hamburg  into  Denmark, 
and  they  succeeded  at  last  in  reaching  home  from  Copen- 
hagfen. 

It  was  not  long  afterward  that  the  English  prisoners 
were  sent  away  to  Berlin  and  confined  in  the  camp  at 
Ruhleben  with  their  compatriots  who  had  been  in  Ger- 
many when  the  war  broke  out.  The  British  Consul,  Mr. 
Jeff  es,  on  account  of  his  advanced  years,  had  not  been 
molested,  but  his  son,  the  Vice-Consul,  had  been  taken 
to  the  lEcole  Militaire,  and  there  for  a  while  he  remained 
with  Mr.  Butcher,  another  Englishman,  and  with  Mr. 
Grant- Watson  and  Mr.  Kimura,  until  one  Sunday 
morning  I  was  asked  to  go  to  the  Zivilverwaltung  at  an 
hour  so  early,  even  by  German  time,  that  despite  their 
terrible  capacity  for  early  rising  and  hard  work  there 
was  no  one  yet  visible  but  a  sleepy  boy  scout  of  the  Ger- 
man variety.  After  a  while  the  Baron  von  der  Lancken 
appeared,  and  then  Mr.  Grant- Watson  was  shown  in, 
and  the  Baron  announced  to  him  that  he  must  leave  at 
once  for  Berlin.  The  time  for  departure  was  at  hand 
and  the  Baron  left  us  a  moment  in  the  Sitzenstall  that 
we  might  talk,  and  there,  after  I  had  told  Mr.  Grant- 
Watson  the  gossip  of  Brussels  and  given  him  news  of  his 
family  and  friends  in  England,  and  taken  his  message, 
and,  I  trust,  given  him  some  realization  of  the  sympathy 
I  felt  for  him,  and  of  my  admiration  for  his  calmness,  a 

383 


BELGIUM 

young  German  officer  entered,  bowed  stiffly,  shook  hands 
with  Mr.  Grant- Watson,  and  then,  standing  with  his 
hand  at  his  vizor  in  salute,  said: 

'^J'aurai  Vhorineur  de  vous  conduire  a  Berlin." 
The  motor  was  waiting  there  in  the  Rue  de  la  Loi  and, 
like  many  another  in  those  times,  Mr.  Grant- Watson 
was  whirled  away  to  an  unknown  fate. 

I  thought  for  a  moment,  a  week  later,  that  it  was  to  be 
a  serious  fate  when  von  der  Lancken  confided  to  me  that 
he  greatly  feared  that  Mr.  Grant-Watson  had  seriously 
compromised  himself,  most  important  secret  documents 
had  been  discovered,  he  said;  there  would  have  to  be  a 
court  martial;  spying,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing;  most 
alarming!  At  the  iEcole  Militaire,  I  was  told,  Mr. 
Grant- Watson  had  been  found  destroying  papers  which 
on  examination  proved  to  be  some  sort  of  military  plans. 
Then,  great  affiches  on  the  walls  of  Brussels;  more 
Ncuvelles  publiees  par  le  Gouvernement  allemand^ 
highly  sensational ;  no  less,  in  fact,  than  that  Mr.  Grant- 
Watson  had  tried  to  destroy  documents  which  he  had 
clandestinely  taken  to  prison  with  him  from  the  British 
Legation,  documents  that  gave  the  "most  intimate"  de- 
tails about  the  mobilization  of  the  Belgian  army  and  the 
defense  of  Antwerp,  a  long  story  which,  in  the  German 
view,  proved  that  there  had  been  foul  play  and  a  con- 
spiracy on  the  part  of  Belgium  and  England  to  attack 
Germany.* 

^  This  is  the  affiche: 

"Berlin,  15  decembre. — La  Norddeutsche  Allemeine  ecrit  au 
sujet  du  jeu  de  I'Angleterre  concemant  la  neutralite  de  la  Belgique. 
De  nouvelles  preuves  graves  ont  ete  trouvees  demontrant  la  eom- 
plicite  anglo-belge.  Recemment  le  Secretaire  de  la  Legation  an- 
glaise,  Mr.  Grant- Watson,  a  ete  arrete,  lequel  etait  reste  a  I'hotel  de 

384 


HATRED  OF  THE  ENGLISH 

Whatever  it  may  have  been  intended  to  be  for  others, 
the  ajflche  to  me  was  most  assuring.  We  were  begin- 
ning to  learn  that  the  Buncombe  county  in  the  German 
Empire  was  very  extensive,  with  an  insatiable  appetite 

la  Legation  anglaise,  ou  il  essayait  de  faire  disparaitre  des  docu- 
ments qu'il  avait  clandestinement  emportes  de  la  Legation.  II  y 
avait  parmi  ces  documents  des  pieces  avec  des  donnees  des  plus  in- 
times  concernant  la  mobilisation  beige  et  concernant  la  defense 
d'Anvers,  des  annees  1913-1914,  ainsi  que  des  circulaires  avec  des 
ordres  a  I'adresse  des  hautes  autorites  militaires  beiges  et  portant 
la  signature-fac-simile  du  Ministre  de  la  Guerre  beige  et  du  chef 
de  I'Etat  Major  General  ainsi  que  des  notes  de  compte-rendu  d'une 
seance  de  la  'Commission  de  ravitaillement  d'Anvers'  du  sy  mai, 
1913.  Le  fait  que  ces  documents  se  trouvaient  a  la  Legation  d'An- 
gleterre  montre  suffisamment  que  le  gouvernement  beige  n'avait,  en 
matiere  militaire,  aucun  secret  pour  le  gouvernement  britannique  et 
que  les  deux  etaient  continuellement  en  etroite  entente  militaire. 
Particulierement  interessante  est  cette  note  ecrite  a  la  main:  'Ren- 
seignement.  Primo:  Les  officiers  fran9ais  ont  re9u  ordre  rejoindre 
des  le  vingt-sept  juillet  apres-midi.  Secundo:  Le  meme  jour  le 
chef  de  gare  de  Feignies  re9ut  ordre  concentrer  vers  Maubeuge  tous 
wagons  fermes  disponibles  en  vue  de  Frameries.'  Le  deux  localites 
sont  situees  sur  la  ligne  de  chemin  de  fer  de  Maubeuge-Mons- 
Feignies  a  environ  trois  kilometres  de  la  frontiere  beige  en  France. 
Frameries,  en  Belgique,  est  a  environ  dix  kilometres  de  la  frontiere. 
II  en  ressort  que  la  France  avait,  des  le  27  juillet,  pris  les  pre- 
mieres mesures  de  mobilisation  et  que  la  Legation  britannique  en  fut 
aussitot  avertie  par  la  Belgique.  Parmi  les  preuves  anterieures  de- 
montrant  les  relations  entre  I'Angleterre  et  la  Belgique,  les  docu- 
ments decouverts  constituent  des  complements  precieux.  lis  demon- 
trent  a  nouveau  que  la  Belgique  abandonna  sa  neutralite  au  profit  de 
I'Entente,  qu'elle  devint  un  membre  actif  de  la  coalition  formee  en 
vue  de  combattre  I'Empire  allemand.  Pour  I'Angleterre  la  neu- 
tralite de  la  Belgique  representait  en  realite  seulement  un  'scrap 
of  paper'  (chiffon  de  papier)  qu'elle  n'invoquait  que  pour  autant 
qu'elle  correspondait  a  ses  interets,  mais  qu'elle  considerait  existante 
des  que  cela  pouvait  servir  ses  projets.     II  est  evident  que  le  gouv- 

385 


BELGIUM 

for  sensations  that  could  produce  the  soft  thrill  of  a 
purring  satisfaction. 

Of  course  had  any  such  papers  ever  existed,  Mr. 
Grant- Watson  could  not  have  had  them  at  the  Ecole 
Militaire,  for  it  might  be  assumed  that  diplomats  of  such 
deep  sagacity  as  the  Germans  charged  the  British  with 
being  would  have  destroyed  any  such  documents  with 
the  other  papers  they  were  so  busily  engaged  in  burning 
over  at  the  British  Legation  those  last  days  before  they 
departed  for  Antwerp.  Truth  is  often  exasperating  in 
her  deliberate  movements  and  not  to  be  hurried  but  she 
always  arrives  calm  and  unflushed  at  her  destination,  and 
so  the  papers  proved,  in  fact,  to  be  nothing  more  than 
old  hypothetical  military  problems  studied  by  the  Bel- 
gian youths  who  were  being  educated  as  officers  for  the 
Belgian  army  in  the  Ecole  Militaire;  they  had  been 
found,  so  it  was  said,  in  a  locker  in  the  rooms  assigned  to 
Mr.  Grant- Watson  after  the  gentry  were  separated 
from  the  commonalty.  But  they  served  as  well  as  those 
other  hypothetical  problems  studied  by  Belgian  military 
men — and,  as  the  event  proved,  with  prophetic  wisdom 
— and  left  to  be  found  by  the  corps  of  professors  who 
bent  their  eager,  purblind  gaze  through  their  thick  spec- 
tacles on  all  the  dusty  archives  and  waste-paper  baskets 
found  in  the  Ministries.  There  were  sensational  stories 
about  these,  too,  published  on  the  walls  of  Brussels  and 
blazoned  abroad  throughout  the  world,  in  order  to  pro- 
duce an  impression  that  Belgium  had  not  been  true  to 
herself,  but  had  entered  into  an  intrigue  with  England 

ernement  anglais  a  simplement  pris  pretexte  de  la  violation  de  la 

neutralite  beige  par  TAllemagne  pour  faire  paraitre  aux  yeux  du 

monde  et  du  peuple  anglais  la  guerre  avec  nous  comme  equitable. 

"Le  Gouvernement  General  en  Belgique." 

386 


HATRED  OF  THE  ENGLISH 

and  finally  with  France  to  invade  peaceful,  unsuspect- 
ing, unprepared  Teutonia.  It  was  but  a  part  of  that 
effort  made  by  Germany  to  justify  her  wilful  and  cyn- 
ical violation  of  the  neutrality  which  the  King  of  Prus- 
sia had  imposed  on  and  guaranteed  to  Belgium.  All 
sorts  of  papers  and  documents  found  in  the  Ministries 
at  Brussels  were  exhibited  in  the  hope  of  showing  that 
the  English  or  the  French  had  broken  their  engage- 
ments, or  that  there  had  been  collusion  between  Belgium 
and  England,  or  between  Belgium  and  France,  to  attack 
Germany.^ 

Nothing  came  of  it,  of  course;  after  the  story  had 
been  published,  and  the  effect  it  was  supposed  to  pro- 
duce had  been  obtained,  Mr.  Grant-Watson,  who  had 
been  "treated  like  an  officer"  in  Berlin — and  of  course 
nothing  more  could  be  asked  by  any  one — was  allowed 
to  go  home  to  England,  by  way  of  Denmark,  long  after 
Kimura  had  been  permitted  to  go  out  by  way  of  Hol- 
land, and  so  return  by  America  to  his  far-off  Japan. 

^  The  Germans,  in  the  effort  to  justify  their  invasion  of  Bel- 
gium, made  in  violation  of  their  own  guaranty,  published  two  letters 
found  in  the  Belgian  Ministry  of  War,  as  proof  of  an  understand- 
ing between  Belgium  and  Great  Britain  by  which  British  troops 
could  be  landed  in  Belgium.  In  fact,  these  notes  were  but  memo- 
randa prepared  years  before  by  military  attaches  of  the  British 
Legation  at  Brussels  as  to  the  possible  intervention  of  England  in 
the  event  that  Belgium  were  attacked.  They  were  merely  records 
of  conversations  between  the  military  attaches  and  Belgian  officers, 
and  were  purely  hypothetical,  as  their  context  and  the  time  of  their 
occurrence  showed.  But  they  were  so  presented  by  the  Germans 
as  to  create  the  impression  of  an  agreement  between  Belgium  and 
Great  Britain  to  attack  Germany.  These  insinuations  have  been 
effectually  denied  by  M.  Emile  Brunet  in  his  pamphlet  entitled 
Les  Conventions  Anglo-Beiges. 

387 


LVII 

VIVE   LE   ROI 

The  fifteenth  of  November  is  the  jowr  de  fete  of  Al- 
bert I,  King  of  the  Belgians,  and  it  had  a  poignant  sig- 
nificance for  his  people  in  that  tragic  year  of  1914.  The 
news  of  the  horror  of  Roulers  had  just  come  to  town, 
another  Louvain  in  the  fury  of  its  vengeance  on  the 
civil  population  because  the  Belgian  army  had  again 
blocked  the  path  of  German  imperialism.  The  King — 
down  there  on  the  battle  line  in  the  far  corner  of  the  land, 
fighting  with  his  men  behind  the  Yser,  whose  yellow 
waters  had  flooded  western  Flanders — older,  as  Arno 
Dorch,  who  had  seen  His  Majesty  at  Furnes,  could 
describe  him  to  us,  moustache  grown  long,  a  fixed  sad- 
ness in  his  face  and  a  steady  flame  in  his  eye,  somehow 
like  a  Viking;  and  the  little  Queen,  quite  simple,  going 
about  on  errands  of  mercy,  a  romantic  picture — was 
never  so  near  to  the  hearts  of  his  people.  And  Brussels 
was  arranging  a  demonstration.  The  people  wished  it 
to  assume  the  solemn  form  of  a  high  mass  at  Ste. 
Gudule,  and  the  word  was  whispered  about;  every  one 
was  going.  But  the  Germans  got  wind  of  that,  as  of 
everything,  and  forbade  it  and  there  was  no  high  mass. 
So  every  one  went,  instead,  to  low  mass,  an  enormous 
crowd  that  trooped  in  out  of  the  rain  mixed  with  the 
snow  that  was  falling,  to  fill  the  old  grey  church  and 
stand  in  silent  throngs  in  the  aisles  while  the  low  mass 
was  said,  and  then  at  the  end  to  shout  the  passionate: 

''Five  le  Roi!  Vive  la  Belgique!" 

388 


VIVE  LE  ROI 

At  the  church  of  St.  Boniface  a  Belgian  flag  was  dis- 
played and  a  German  soldier  tore  it  down.  The  Livre 
d'Or  at  the  house  of  the  Grand  Marechal,  in  which  peo- 
ple were  to  sign  for  the  King,  was  seized  by  the  German 
police.  Two  boys  who  shouted  "Vive  le  Roi!"  were  ar- 
rested and,  since  nothing  was  too  insignificant  to  pass 
unnoticed,  the  little  son  of  the  Countess  de  Buisseret  was 
arrested  for  making  goose-steps  in  the  street  while  a 
squad  of  German  soldiers  was  passing.  The  Countess 
was  an  American  and  it  required  a  week  of  effort  on  my 
part  to  have  the  lad  released  from  the  Kommandantur. 
And  I  heard  of  a  man  who  was  arrested  "pour  avoir 
regards  ume  dame  allemande  avec  insolence  dans  la  rue.'* 

Some  one  was  always  being  arrested;  the  Polizei  were 
beginning  to  saunter  up  and  down  the  streets  in  twos  or 
threes  and  the  Kommandantur  there  in  the  Rue  de  Lou- 
vain  was  soon  filled,  as  was  once  the  Bastille,  with  pris- 
oners. They  arrested  high  and  low,  from  the  wife  of  the 
Grand  Marshal  of  the  Court  down  to  the  man,  slinking 
by  in  the  twilight,  who  offered  the  Times  for  sale.  The 
oldest  and  proudest  names  in  Belgium  were  on  the  roll 
of  patriots. 

The  Germans  began  too  the  seizure  of  property,  not 
only  public  but  private.  They  closed  the  gates  of  the 
lovely  Pare,  designed  by  Zinner  in  1774,  with  its  lofty 
trees,  its  pleasant  alleys,  its  fountains  and  statues,  the 
park  where  Brussels  loved  to  loiter  and  listen  to  the 
music,  and  where  the  children  played.  It  was  all 
changed;  in  the  place  reservee  au^  jeux  d'enfants  offi- 
cers exercised  their  horses.  Already  in  the  villages  and 
suburbs  they  were  seizing  bronze  and  copper — even  the 
door-knobs  and  kitchen  utensils. 

The  directors  of  the  Banque    Nationale  were  sub- 

389 


BELGIUM 

jected  to  the  first  of  a  long  series  of  vexations,  in  re- 
venge for  the  action  of  the  bank  in  removing  all  of  its 
treasury  to  Antwerp  and  thence  to  England.  Then  the 
Germans  began  to  arrest  those  members  of  the  Garde 
Civique  who  had  considered  it  a  point  of  patriotism  not 
to  report  to  the  Meldeamt  in  obedience  to  the  German 
order. 

Antwerp,  too,  was  having  its  troubles  and  anxieties 
like  all  Belgium.  There  the  German  Commandant  gave 
his  word  that  the  Gardes  Civiques  who  had  fled  might  re- 
turn and  be  immune,  but  when  they  came  they  were 
immediately  arrested,  though  later  they  were  released 
on  parole.  The  city  fathers  had  signed  a  convention 
with  the  Germans  to  the  effect  that  no  indemnity  would 
be  demanded  from  Antwerp,  but  the  paper  was  no 
sooner  signed  than  the  Germans  demanded  fifty  million 
francs. 

These  troubles  all  had  their  reaction  on  us,  besides 
that  which  came  upon  us  daily  with  the  almost  inextrica- 
ble complications  in  organizing  the  ravitaillement. 

It  was  of  course  inevitable,  because  very  human,  that 
people  should  come,  even  across  the  sea,  on  all  sorts  of 
wild  goose  chases;  a  group  of  reformers  actually  came 
to  me  proposing  to  organize  a  committee  to  spray  the 
battlefields  with  disinfectants. 

There  was  trouble  about  our  courier  from  Holland, 
who  was  always  being  arrested  or  stopped  and  searched 
by  the  militaires;  there  were  troubles  about  the  post; 
the  Germans  were  opposed  to  our  carrying  letters  for 
any  one  but  them ;  and  when  the  militaires  heard  that  a 
Belgian  had  sent  word  to  a  friend  in  Holland  to  address 
his  letters  in  care  of  the  American  Legation  they 
thought  that  was  conclusive  evidence  that  we  were  re- 

390 


VIVE  LE  ROI 

ceiving  and  delivering  and  despatching  letters.  We 
finally  arranged  the  affair  of  the  post  satisfactorily,  the 
courier  going  into  Holland  in  a  motor  with  a  German 
soldier  on  the  box,  carrying  the  pouches  of  the  Spanish, 
Dutch  and  American  Legations,  and  though  the  service 
was  now  and  then  interrupted,  as  a  military  necessity, 
the  Germans  always  respected  the  seals  on  our  pouches. 
It  was  hard  to  refuse  the  poor  folk  who  wished  to  send 
letters  to  their  friends  and  relatives  outside,  but  having 
given  my  word  not  to  forward  any  letters,  the  constant 
refusals  became  one  of  the  hard  tasks  of  each  day.  They 
could  see  no  reason  why  one  should  keep  one's  word 
when  it  had  been  given  to  a  German,  which  shows  what 
example  will  do. 

There  was  no  escaping  trouble,  one's  own  or  those  of 
others,  whose  troubles  were  so  much  worse  than  one's 
own.  The  universal  tragedy  touched  one  on  every  hand. 
Hermancito,  distressed  over  the  sad  plight  of  his  own 
land,  was  going  to  leave.  The  Mexican  Legation  did 
not  exist  any  more.  He  made  a  famous  mot  of  it,  in  his 
merry  way,  saying,  of  his  situation: 

*^Je  represente  v/n  pays  sans  gouvernement  aupres 
d'un  gouvernement  sans  pays." 

But  all  these  troubles  faded  into  nothing  one  night 
late  in  November,  when  a  message  came  from  Washing- 
ton in  these  words : 

Your  despatch  of  ,  referring  to  conditions  in  Brussels 

since  its  occupation  by  the  Germans^  has  been  received  and  read 
by  the  Department  with  much  interest.  The  Department  informs 
you  that  the  patriotic  and  efficient  way  in  which  the  numerous  diffi- 
culties that  have  arisen  during  the  past  few  months  in  Belgium  have 
been  met  is  appreciated. 


LVIII 

YON   BISSING 

One  afternoon  the  Marquis  of  Villalobar,  whose 
pretty  red  and  yellow  flag,  with  the  royal  arms  of  Spain, 
fluttered  so  gaily  about  Brussels  on  its  various  errands, 
came  in  with  an  important  gazette.  Von  der  Goltz  had 
gone  to  Constantinople  and  was  to  be  superseded.  For 
days  Turkish  princes  had  been  in  Brussels,  and  there  had 
been  wonderful  dinners  and  in  the  dining  halls  of  the 
Belgian  Ministries,  fetes  at  which  the  Pasha  spoke 
Turkish  with  the  best  of  them.  General  von  Liittwitz 
had  gone  too.  It  was  always  that  way ;  we  had  no  sooner 
got  used  to  von  Jarotsky  than  he  left,  and  now  that  we 
knew  von  Liittwitz  he  was  going.  Baron  Freys  was 
leaving  too,  and  we  regretted  that;  he  had  made  things 
much  easier.  But  the  Pasha  departed  unwept  of  all  I 
fear,  without  even  sympathy  for  the  wound  he  had  re- 
ceived in  the  cheek  while  at  his  favorite  sport  of  watch- 
ing battles  in  Flanders,  and  his  successor  duly  arrived, 
as  the  latest  affiche  announced: 

Avis 

Sa  Majeste  I'Empereur  et  Roi,  ayant  designe  un  nouveau  gouv- 
ernement  general  en  Bclgique,  j'ai  pris  aujourd'hui  la  direction  des 
affaires. 

Bruxelles,  le  3  decembre,  1914. 

Baron  von  Bissing, 
General  de  cavalerie. 

A  few  days  later  we  went  up  the  grand  staircase  of 
the  Ministere  des  Arts  in  the  Rue  de  la  Loi,  the  Mar- 

392 


VON  BISSING 

quis  of  Villalobar,  M.  van  Vollenhoven  and  I,  and,  by 
the  Baron  von  der  Lancken,  were  presented  to  the  new 
Governor-General,  a  man  whose  name,  justly  or  un- 
justly, was  destined  to  stand  forth  to  the  world  as  the 
symbol  of  one  of  the  darkest,  cruelest  and  most  sinister 
pages  of  its  miserable  history. 

General  Baron  von  Bissing,  standing  there  in  the 
lofty  salon  of  the  residence  of  the  Belgian  Minister  of 
the  Arts  and  Sciences,  in  the  early  twilight  of  that  short 
December  afternoon,  was  a  man  over  seventy  years  of 
age,  old  and  thin,  with  thick  greying,  black  hair  brushed 
straight  back  from  his  forehead  and  plastered  down  as 
with  water  or  with  oil  on  the  curiously  shaped  head  that 
was  so  straight  and  sheer  behind.  His  face  was  hard 
and  its  leathern  skin,  wrinkled  and  old  and  weather- 
beaten,  was  remorselessly  shaved  as  to  chin  and  throat 
and  high  lean  cheeks,  leaving  the  thick  heavy  moustaches 
of  a  Prussian  Reiter  to  hide  somewhat  the  thin  lips  of  the 
stem  mouth  and  then  flow  on,  growing  across  his  cheeks 
to  bristle  up  fiercely  by  his  ears. 

He  was  scrupulously  clean,  one  might  almost  say 
scrubbed ;  one  imagines  him  smelling  of  soap  and  leather 
like  an  old  sergeant-major  in  the  regiment  of  Guards. 
His  brow  was  high  and  the  lean  face  tapered  to  the 
wedge  of  a  very  firm  jaw;  the  visage  of  an  old  Prussian 
dragoon  of  the  school  and  mentality  of  Bismarck.  But 
out  of  it  there  gleamed  a  pair  of  piercing  dark  eyes  that 
seemed  black  until  one  saw  that  they  were  blue;  they 
were  keen,  shrewd  eyes,  not  wholly  unkind.  He  wore, 
ceremoniously,  a  great  heavy  sabre  that  clanked  against 
his  thin  legs  as  he  walked  stiffly  into  the  salon,  until,  as 
by  an  habitual  gesture,  he  grasped  its  hilt  in  his  aged 
hand. 

393 


BELGIUM 

He  had  on  a  well-worn  uniform;  his  thin  legs,  on 
which  he  walked  so  slowly  and  so  stiffly,  as  with  auto- 
matic movements,  were  encased  in  tight  blue  trousers, 
caught  with  straps  below  the  long,  pointed  boots  that 
were  made  of  soft  leather  and  furnished  with  great  sil- 
ver spurs.  His  tunic  was  light  grey  and  short,  and  its 
shabbiness  was  somehow  accentuated  by  the  Iron  Cross 
of  the  first  class  that  he  wore,  and  by  the  enamelled  star 
of  the  Order  of  the  Black  Eagle,  fastened  by  a  cravat 
about  his  collar  and  dangling  heavily  out  at  his  wrinkled 
old  throat. 

.Though  he  spoke  French  he  did  not  like  to  do  so,  and 
in  this  audience  he  expressed  himself  with  a  rough  voice 
in  German,  which  the  Baron  von  der  Lancken,  standing 
on  his  left,  translated  into  French  for  us.  He  shook 
hands  with  me  first  and  thanked  me  for  what  I  had  done 
on  behalf  of  German  interests,  and  spoke  of  certain 
American  Consuls  in  Germany  with  whom  he  had  re- 
cently had  relations.  He  spoke  then  to  the  Marquis, 
expressing  his  regret  for  an  incident  that  had  occurred 
at  Namur  a  few  days  before,  when  Villalobar  had  been 
insulted  by  a  Kommandant.  And  then  he  had  a  few 
words  for  van  VoUenhoven,  to  whom  he  spoke  in  Ger- 
man, something  or  other  pertaining  to  Holland.  He 
seemed  to  have  prepared,  or  more  likely  Baron  von  der 
Lancken  had  suggested  to  him,  something  personal  to 
say  to  each  of  us,  and  this  said,  the  brief  audience, 
which  had  been  invested  with  the  formality  of  a  private 
presentation  at  Court,  ended,  and  we  drove  back  in  the 
bleak  afternoon,  with  its  lowering  clouds  and  gusty 
winds,  under  the  impression  of  a  strong  and  possibly  a 
hard  personality.    We  knew  at  any  rate  that  the  new 

394 


VON  BISSING 

Governor- General  in  Belgium  was  quelqu'un,  as  the 
French  say. 

Two  days  later  General  x>aron  von  Bissing  came  to 
return  my  call,  accompanied  by  Baron  von  der  Lancken 
and  an  aide,  and  by  General  von  Kraewel,  who  had  suc- 
ceeded General  von  Liittwitz  as  Governor  of  Brussels, 
all  of  them  in  full  uniform  with  decorations.  General 
von  Kraewel  was  a  little  man  with  closely  cropped  hair, 
and  a  small  brush  of  white  moustache  and  the  com- 
plexion of  a  man  who  loves  the  open  air.  He  had  lived 
in  England  and  was  something  of  a  sporting  man,  I 
imagine,  or  else  he  thought  I  was,  for  he  talked  of  horses 
and  jockeys. 

They  stayed  only  long  enough  for  a  cup  of  tea  and 
a  cigarette,  and  were  gone  in  their  grey  motors.  I  never 
saw  General  von  Kraewel  again,  for  after  that,  at  the 
request  of  the  Governor-General,  we  were  to  have  our 
relations  with  the  Departement  Politique — Politische 
Ahteilung — at  whose  head  the  Baron  von  der  Lancken 
was  to  be  detailed. 

The  first  important  act  of  the  new  Governor-General 
was  to  impose  on  the  population  of  Belgium,  by  a  decree 
of  the  tenth  of  December,  a  contribution  of  war  amount- 
ing to  480,000,000  francs.^     Another  decree,  dated  the 

^  Ordre 

II  est  impose  a  la  population  de  Belgique  une  contribution  de 
guerre  s'elevant  a  40  millions  de  francs  a  payer  mensuellement 
pendant  la  duree  d'une  annee. 

Le  paiement  de  ces  montants  est  a  la  charge  des  neuf  provinces 
qui  en  sont  tenues  comme  debitrices  solidaires. 

Les  deux  premieres  mensualites  sont  a  realiser  au  plus  tard  le 
15  Janvier   1915,  les  mensualites  suivantes  au  plus  tard  le   10  de 

395 


BELGIUM 

eighth  of  December,  convened  the  Provincial  Councils  of 
Belgium  in  extraordinary  session  for  the  nineteenth  of 
December.  The  session  was  to  be  opened  and  closed  in 
the  name  of  the  German  Governor- General ;  it  was  not 
to  last  longer  than  one  day ;  its  session  was  to  be  held  in 
secret  committee,  and  the  sole  object  of  the  deliberation 
was  to  be  the  method  of  raising  the  contribution  of  war 
levied  on  the  Belgian  population.  And,  furthermore,  a 
quorum  was  not  necessary  to  the  validity  of  its  acts.^ 

chaque  mois  suivant  a  la  caisse  de  I'armee  en  campagne  du  gouv- 
ernement  general  imperial  de  Bruxelles. 

Dans  le  cas  ou  les  provinces  devraient  recourir  a  remission  d'obli- 
gations  a  I'efFet  de  se  procurer  les  fonds  necessaires,  la  forme  et 
la  teneur  de  ces  titres  seront  determinees  par  le  commissaire  gen- 
eral imperial  pour  les  banques  en  Belgique. 
*  Bruxelles,  le  10  decembre,  1914. 

Le  gouverneur   general   en   Belgique, 

Baron  von  Bissing, 
General  de  cavalerie. 

^  Arrete 

Concernant  la  Convocation  des  Conseils  Provinciaux  en  Session 
Extraordinaire. 

Art.  1. — Les  conseils  provinciaux  des  provinces  beiges  sont 
convoques,  par  les  presentes,  en  session  extraordinaire  pour  samedi 
19  decembre,  a  midi  (heure  allemande)  aux  chefs-lieux  des  pro- 
vinces. 

Art.  2. — Ces  sessions  extraordinaires  ne  seront  annoncees  que 
par  le  Gesetz  und  Verordnungshlatt  du  gouvernement  allemand 
(Bulletin  officiel  des  Lois  et  Arretes  pour  le  territoire  beige  occupe). 

Art.  3. — Les  convocations  des  membres  des  conseils  sont  faites 
par  les  deputations  permanentes. 

La  presence  du  gouverneur  de  la  province  n'est  pas  obligatoire. 
La  deputation  permanente  nommera  celui  des  membres  de  la  depu- 
tation par  qui  la  session  du  conseil  sera  ouverte  et  close.    La  session 

396 


VON  BISSING 

sera  ouverte  et  close  au  nom  du  gouverneur  general  allemand  im- 
perial. 

Art.  4. — La  duree  de  la  session  ne  depassera  pas  un  jour.  La 
seance  se  fait  en  comite  secret. 

L'objet  unique  de  la  deliberation  dont  I'assemblee  est  tenue  de 
s'occuper  exclusivement  est:  "le  mode  visant  I'accomplissement  de 
I'imposition  de  guerre  mise  a  la  charge  de  la  population  beige." 

Art.  5. — La   deliberation   se   fait   en   toute   validite,   sans   egard 
au  nombre  des  membres  presents. 
Bruxelles,  le  8  decembre,  1914. 

Le  gouverneur  general  en  Belgique, 

Baron  von  Bissing, 
General  de  cavalerie. 


LIX 

HERBERT    CLARK    HOOVER 

One  evening  in  November,  as  we  were  standing  after 
dinner  before  the  fire  that  blazed  in  the  great  chimney 
in  the  drawing-room  of  his  home  on  the  Avenue  Louise, 
M.  Emile  Francqui  gave  me,  in  his  vivid  way,  a 
portrait  of  Mr.  Herbert  C.  Hoover.  It  was  an  impres- 
sionistic portrait  drawn  with  broad  rough  strokes,  a  por- 
trait that  impelled  the  admiration  that  seemed  to  inspire 
so  much  of  it,  and  he  completed  it  finally  with  a  swift 
gesture  that  described  a  half  arc  under  his  own  chin,  as 
he  said : 

"Une  mdchoire,  vous  savez!" 

The  dinner  had  been  arranged  in  honour  of  Mr. 
Hoover,  but  he  had  been  detained  at  the  Dutch  frontier 
and  had  not  arrived  in  time ;  we  were  expecting  him  then 
in  the  morning,  and  we  were  awaiting  his  coming  impa- 
tiently, for  the  great  task  of  organization  was  assuming 
proportions  that  were  appalling.  I  had  never  met  my 
compatriot  as  I  have  said,  and  I  knew  him  only  as  the 
rich  American  who  had  so  ably  organized  the  repatria- 
tion of  American  refugees  in  London  on  the  outbreak 
of  the  war  that  Dr.  Page  had  at  once  suggested  him  to 
organize  the  ravitaillement,  and  I  had  of  his  personality 
only  such  impressions  as  might  be  derived  from  the  two 
laconic  despatches  he  had  sent  me.  But  M.  Francqui 
had  known  him  fifteen  years  before  in  China,  where  they 
had  been  associated  in  one  of  those  vast  colonial  enter- 
prises for  the  exploitation  of  the  kingdom.     The  gos- 

398 


HERBERT  CLARK  HOOVER 

sips,  hearing  of  this  new  relation,  had  it  that  they  had 
not  always  agreed  while  they  were  in  China,  and  that 
their  disagreements  had  finally  assumed  the  intran- 
sigeant  quality  of  a  conflict  between  two  inimical  and 
indomitable  wills.  Fundamentally,  the  gossips  said, 
they  were  much  alike,  and  they  were  telling  a  romantic 
tale  in  Brussels  those  days  of  how,  when  fate  brought 
them  together  again  after  so  many  years,  they  met  at  the 
American  Embassy  in  London  to  organize  the  largest 
humanitarian  enterprise  the  world  had  ever  seen,  and 
the  only  international  institution  then  existing  on  the  un- 
happy planet;  they  looked  each  other  in  the  eye  a  mo- 
ment— and  shook  hands.  Such  a  scene  and  such  a  situa- 
tion was  one  the  gossips  could  not  resist,  so  much  of 
romanticism  is  there  in  all  of  us,  and  the  story  had  not 
deteriorated  in  its  engaging  qualities  by  the  time  it 
reached  occupied  Brussels.  I  do  not  pretend  to  know 
the  details ;  all  I  know  is  that  M.  Francqui  was  a  strong 
man  who  came  from  Belgium  and  spoke  one  language, 
and  that  Mr.  Hoover  was  a  strong  man  who  came  from 
California  and  spoke  another,  and  that 

There  is  neither  East  nor  West, 

Border,  nor  breed,  nor  birth. 
When  two  strong  men  stand  face  to  face 

Tho'  they  come  from  the  ends  of  the  earth. 

M.  Francqui  spoke  of  Mr.  Hoover  that  evening  in 
terms  of  admiration;  he  said  that  he  was  precisely  the 
man  for  the  work  there  was  to  do,  and  that  Belgium  was 
lucky  to  have  him  to  its  aid.  His  description,  indeed, 
evoked  a  figure  in  such  heroic  proportions  that  I  was 
prepared  to  see  a  man  physically  somewhat  larger  than 
the  man  I  found  nervously  pacing  the  floor  of  my  office 

39^ 


BELGIUM 

the  following  afternoon  when  I  went  down  in  response 
to  the  card  that  had  been  sent  up. 

He  gave  the  impression  of  being  tall,  though  he  was 
of  medium  height,  because  he  was  slender,  and  he  had 
extremely  small  hands  and  feet;  his  hands,  however,  as 
at  that  first  moment,  were  usually  in  his  trousers  pock- 
ets, and  they  nervously  jingled  and  incessantly  clinked 
together  the  coins  that  he  carried  loosely  there,  as 
though  he  were  of  that  generous  American  prejudice 
which  scorns  a  purse  because  it  suggests  parsimony.  He 
was  dressed  in  modest  dark  blue  serge,  and  wore  a  black 
cravat.  His  face,  smoothly  shaven,  with  a  somewhat 
youthful  air,  was  not  at  all  the  face  of  the  sanguine  type 
of  business  man,  but  a  face  sensitive,  with  a  delicate 
mouth,  thin  lips,  a  face  that  wore  a  weary  expression,  as 
of  one  who  dispensed  too  much  nervous  force  and  was 
always  tired.  It  was  a  face  which  with  its  dark,  some- 
times intently  scowling  eyes,  under  the  wide  white  brow, 
over  which  the  abundant  black  hair  fell  in  something 
very  nearly  approaching  disorder,  would  have  marked 
him  as  an  idealist,  had  not  its  dominant  feature  set  him 
down  indubitably  as  a  strong-willed  man  of  force  and 
action.  That  feature  was  the  broad,  firm  jaw;  one 
noted  it  instantly,  and  recalled  the  effective  gesture  of 
M.  Francqui  in  describing  the  feature  that  naturally 
would  impress  him  most.  Perhaps  the  brow  and  the 
jaw  might  indicate  the  possession  of  both  qualities  with- 
out implying  any  conflict  between  them,  for  one  could 
not  talk  with  him  long  without  seeing  that  there  was 
great  idealism  there;  it  showed  in  the  first  words  he 
spoke  concerning  the  Belgians  and  their  sufferings.  He 
had  them  on  his  heart  already.  Idealism  showed  too  in 
his  eyes,  that  were  soft  and  pitying  when  he  spoke  of  the 

400 


HERBERT  CLARK  HOOVER 

Belgians,  and  it  was  very  clear  that  his  one  idea  was,  in 
the  words  which  Mr.  Thomas  Hardy  had  just  written  in 
his  appeal  for  them,  to  soothe 

these  ails  unmerited 
Of  souls  forlorn  upon  the  facing  shore 
Where,  naked,  gaunt,  in  endless  band  and  band. 

Seven  million  stand. 

Sinking  into  a  deep  chair  he  spoke  of  them  in  a  low, 
agreeable  voice,  but  was  soon  turning  to  practical  ways 
of  helping  them.  I  could  describe  to  him  the  situation 
and  tell  him  of  all  our  troubles  inside  and  from  him 
learn  what  had  been  going  on  outside.  He  had  had 
many  troubles  of  his  own  but  he  seemed  to  surmount 
them  all  bravely.  He  had  just  arrived  by  motor  from 
Holland  and  he  was  accompanied  that  afternoon  by 
Mr.  Shaler,  Dr.  Rose,  and  Mr.  Bicknell.  Dr.  Rose  and 
Mr.  Bicknell  represented  the  Rockefeller  Foundation 
and  came  to  investigate  conditions  in  Belgium.  They 
began  cross-examining  me,  and  for  two  hours  I  answered 
questions,  and  when  I  was  through  I  was  as  tired  as 
though  I  had  been  making  an  argument  before  the  Su- 
preme Court. 

The  work  had  grown  even  before  it  could  be  organ- 
ized. Our  original  conception  had  been  that  the  Comite 
National  was  perfectly  competent  to  distribute  food 
through  the  communes  to  its  own  people,  if  it  could 
only  get  the  food  to  deliver.  In  my  own  boundless  igno- 
rance I  had  no  notion  of  the  quantity  of  food  required 
until  I  read  the  memorandum  prepared  by  the  C.  N. 
The  war  would  soon  be  over  anyway,  and  if  we  could 
only  get  through  the  winter  all  would  go  well.  The 
American  people  would  provide  the  food,  by  diplomatic 

401 


BELGIUM 

negotiations  we  would  arrange  to  have  it  pass  the  Brit- 
ish blockade,  and  the  Comite  National  would  distribute 
it.  But  there  were  limits  even  to  American  charity ;  and 
now  England,  who  was  managing  that  blockade,  im- 
posed restrictions  and  conditions;  there  would  have  to 
be  more  delegates,  scores  of  them,  not  Belgians  but 
Americans,  to  supervise  the  distribution  and  see  that  the 
guarantees  were  observed;  hence  the  Rhodes  scholars, 
hence,  ultimately,  the  C.  R.  B.,  that  vast  American  or- 
ganization that  would  work  side  by  side  with  the  vast 
Belgian  organization,  the  C.  N.,  each  independent  of 
the  other,  moving  with  equal  dignity  in  their  respective 
spheres,  like  coordinate  branches  of  the  government  un- 
der the  Constitution. 

This  organization,  as  I  have  told,  had  already  been 
functioning,  but  there  were  many  defects  in  the  C.  R.  B. 
and  it  was  to  remedy  these  that  Mr.  Hoover  had  crossed 
the  North  Sea  and  come  to  Belgium. 

Only  a  few  days  before,  in  the  course  of  a  conversa- 
tion that  Villalobar  and  I  were  having  with  the  Geheim- 
rath  Kauffman,  I  had  remarked  that  already  the  Amer- 
ican organization  had  arranged  to  import  £2,700,000 
for  Belgian  relief,  and  when  he  had  translated  this  into 
German  terms — 54,000,000  marks — the  Geheimrath 
dropped  his  lead  pencil  on  his  desk,  fell  back  in  his  chair 
and  exclaimed: 

"SaprisUr 

Sapristi,  indeed!  But  that  was  only  a  beginning;  a 
mere  drop  in  the  bucket. 

The  next  morning  we  all  went  with  M.  Francqui  in 
the  dismal  rain  to  visit  the  soup  kitchens — Mr.  Hoover, 
Dr.  Rose,  Mr.  Bicknell,  Consul-General  Watts  and 
others.    It  was  natural  that  Mr.  Hoover  and  the  repre- 

402 


HERBERT  CLARK  HOOVER 

sentatives  of  the  Rockefeller  Foundation  should  he  im- 
pressed by  the  organization  which  the  Belgians,  who  are 
famous  organizers,  had  already  set  up  in  their  efficient, 
human  way.  They  could  see  the  effect  of  it  in  the  great 
building,  once  used  by  an  express  company,  in  the  days 
when  there  was  use  of  express  companies,  as  a  hangar, 
where  that  morning  a  score  of  cooks  were  brewing  the 
soup  in  great  cauldrons.  They  could  note  it  in  that  sta- 
tion in  the  Rue  Blaes,  near  the  Boulevard  du  Midi,  in  the 
very  midst  of  the  Quartier  des  Marolles,  where  the  soup 
was  served  to  the  long  line  of  hungry  in  waiting.  The 
station  had  lately  been  a  concert  hall,  and  its  garish 
decorations  were  still  clinging  in  mockery  to  its  walls. 
The  people  of  the  Quartier  stood  in  a  queue  that  trailed 
its  misery  down  the  sidewalk.  They  stood  with  the  di- 
vine patience  of  the  poor,  there  in  the  cold  rain,  shiver- 
ing in  shawls  and  old  coats  and  wooden  shoes,  with  bowls 
or  pitchers  and  each  with  his  number  and  his  card,  issued 
by  his  commune.  The  long  line  advanced  a  step  at  a 
time  into  the  station,  and  paused  by  the  tables  where 
each  received  his — I  wish  we  had  a  neuter  pronoun,  it 
was  so  much  oftener  her ! — ^bit  of  coffee  and  bit  of  chick- 
ory,  which  the  Belgians,  unfortunately,  like  to  mix  with 
their  coffee.  He  received,  too,  his  pot  of  soup  and  his 
loaf  of  daily  bread  which,  in  answer  to  the  old  prayer 
that  had  suddenly  acquired  such  significance,  came  so 
mysteriously  from  that  far,  dim  America  across  the  sea. 
The  numbers  were  checked  off,  the  lines  inspected  by 
persons  acquainted  with  the  neighbourhood.  If  one  was 
missing  the  absence  was  instantly  detected : 

"Oil  est  Jeanne  aujourd'hui?    Est-elle  malade?    Ou 
quoi?" 

They  came,  hundreds  and  hundreds  of  them,  in  si- 

403 


BELGIUM 

lence,  received  their  rations,  paused  to  make  a  formal 
bow,  said  "31ercir  and  passed  out. 

That  "Merci"  somehow  stabbed  one  to  the  heart,  and 
brought  an  ache  to  the  throat,  and  a  most  annoying 
moisture  to  the  eyes.  One  felt  very  humble  in  those  hu- 
man presences.  It  was  a  sight  that  I  could  not  long 
endure,  and  I  knew  what  was  going  on  in  JNIr.  Hoover's 
heart  when  he  turned  away  and  fixed  his  gaze  on  some- 
thing far  down  the  street.  .  .  .  The  time  came  when,  if 
visiting  Americans  asked  to  see  the  soup  lines,  I  sent 
some  one  to  show  them;  I  could  no  longer  bear  to  go 
myself. 

It  was  perhaps  more  touching  at  those  kitchens  where 
the  children  were  fed.  This  part  of  the  work  had  been 
admirably  organized  by  the  Petites  Abeilles,  a  society 
of  Brussels  women  who  had  long  worked  among  the 
children  of  the  poor.  Dr.  Caroline  Hedger,  that  noble 
Chicago  woman  whose  life  has  been  a  blessing  to  count- 
less thousands  of  children  in  that  city,  spent  long  weeks 
working  in  Belgium  that  winter,  rendering  noble  service 
in  the  cause  of  humanity,  and  her  admiration  of  the 
Petites  Abeilles  was  to  me  the  final  proof  of  their  ef- 
fectiveness. We  went  to  the  children's  feeding  station 
in  the  Rue  Royale,  out  near  the  Church  of  Ste.  Marie, 
where  the  long  line  of  women  with  their  children  was 
filing  by.  Each  child  in  the  neighbourhood  was  examined 
by  a  physician,  the  kind  of  nourishment  it  required  al- 
most scientifically  determined,  and  this  noted  on  cards 
of  different  colours,  each  colour  representing  a  certain 
ration.  They  were  given  milk,  usually  a  litre  a  day,  a 
ration  of  bread  with  jam  and  phosphatine  or  chocolate, 
or  something  of  that  sort. 

We  went  to  one  of  the  stations  where  clothes  were 

404 


HERBERT  CLARK  HOOVER 

distributed,  under  the  management  of  Madame  Phillip- 
son- Wiener;  the  same  admirable  Belgian  organization, 
the  same  Belgian  economy.  There  were  new  clothes  and 
old  clothes;  all  the  principles  of  modern  hygiene  ob- 
served, each  garment  disinfected,  washed,  examined, 
necessary  repairs  made,  pressed  and  sent  out.  If  be- 
yond repair  it  was  made  over  into  something  similarly 
useful;  even  old  socks  were  used  to  make  caps  for  chil- 
dren. 

And  what  we  had  seen  that  morning  was  being  re- 
peated all  over  Belgium,  in  every  town  in  the  occupied 
portion,  the  synthesis  of  that  perfect  organization 
which,  based  upon  the  Belgian  commune,  and  impossible 
without  the  Belgian  commune,  had  been  evoked  by  the 
genius  of  M.  Emile  Francqui. 

Then  in  the  afternoon  there  was  the  meeting  of  the 
Comite  National  de  Secours  et  I'Almentation,  con- 
voked in  honour  of  the  patron  Ministers,  and  of  Mr. 
Hoover,  and  of  the  representatives  of  the  Rockefeller 
Foundation,  there  at  the  bank  building  of  the  Societe 
Generale  in  the  great  room  of  the  directors,  an  imposing 
hall  with  marble  busts  of  King  Albert  and  Queen  Eliza- 
beth, and  long  portraits  in  oil  of  King  William  of  Hol- 
land, who  had  founded  the  Societe  Generale,  and  of 
Leopold  I  and  Leopold  II.  The  members  of  the  Com- 
ite, representing  the  best  of  Belgium  that  remained  in- 
side the  line  of  steel,  were  gathered  around  an  enormous 
green  table,  and  they  rose  when  the  Americans  entered, 
and  when  the  Spanish  JMinister  entered,  and  when,  with 
strict  deference  to  the  protocol,  we  were  all  duly  seated, 
M.  Solvay,  the  president,  read  a  touching  allocution 
to  thank  the  Americans.  When  he  came  to  the  words 
"We  are  a  little  nation,"  his  voice  broke,  and  he  could 

405 


BELGIUM 

not  proceed  for  a  moment — a  moment  of  impressive  si- 
lence, and  not  a  dry  eye  there/ 

^  Mr,  Solvay's  speech  was  as  follows : 

Messieurs  les  Ministres, 

Cher  Monsieur  Hoover  et  Chers  Messieurs  Rose  et  Bicknell — 

C'est  en  votre  honneur,  mus  par  des  sentiments  de  gratitude,  que 
nous  nous  reunissons  en  ce  moment. 

Nous  n'oublierons  jamais  I'emotion  qui  nous  prit  quand  tout 
au  debut  de  notre  action,  on  nous  fit  part  que  Messieurs  les  Minis- 
tres  d'Espagne  et  des  Etats-Unis,  confiants  en  notre  oeuvre  et 
en  sa  constitution,  voulaient  bien  consentir  a  la  patronner  en  la 
faisant  devenir  egalement  leur  oeuvre,  et  en  s'entourant  a  cet 
effet  de  collaborateurs  devoues. 

Cette  emotion,  nous  I'eprouvames  encore  lorsque,  au  retour  du 
voyage  a  Londres  de  nos  devoues  collegues,  MM.  le  Baron  Lambert 
et  Francqui,  ce  dernier,  ne  reprimant  pas  sa  vive  satisfaction,  nous 
dit:  'Nous  avons  la  bonne  fortune  d'avoir  a  la  tete  de  la  com- 
mission de  Londres,  ma  homme  d'action,  dans  toute  I'acception  du 
terme,  Mr.  Hoover.  Grace  a  lui,  nos  affaires,  j'en  suis  convaincu, 
marcheront.'  Et  I'armation  de  M.  Francqui  est  maintenant  de- 
venue  un  fait  absolument  avere,  une  realite  qui  nous  debarrasse  de 
poignants  soucis. 

Cette  meme  emotion,  tou jours,  se  renouvelle  encore  aujourd'hui, 
en  voyant  ici  devant  nous,  d'une  part  Mr.  Hoover  lui-meme,  d'autre 
part  les  membres  de  la  Commission  Rockefeller,  MM.  Rose  et  Bick- 
neU. 

Nous  sommes  un  petit  pays,  nous  avons  du  courage,  mais  la 
force  nous  manque.  Et  vous  comprendrez,  chers  Messieurs  ameri- 
cains,  combien  nous  devons  vibrer  de  satisfaction,  par  securite,  quand 
nous  voyons  votre  grande  et  libre  nation  apprecier  nos  souffrances 
et,  subissant  toutes  les  impulsions  spontanees  de  la  solidarite  et 
du  coeur,  venir  a  nous  d'enthousiasme  natural  pour  nous  aider  a 
les  supporter,  pour  nous  empecher  d'etre  terrasses  par  la  faim  et 
le  froid. 

C'est  noble.  Messieurs. 

Vous,  qui  formez  un  peuple  pratique  autant  que  genereux, 
vous  vous  etes  fait  de  I'humanite  la  pure  et  haute  conception  qui 

406 


HERBERT  CLARK  HOOVER 

The  Marquis  said  a  few  words  and  I  spoke  on  behalf 
of  the  Americans. 

We  were  all  very  tired  that  night  after  a  day  of  so 

doit  correspondre  a  la  poussee  de  notre  epoque,  celle  qui  creera 
bientot  la  conscience  active  mondiale  devant  permettre  aux  veri- 
tables  ^prouves  de  partout  de  pouvoir  esperer  en  croyant  au  Droit. 
Chers  Messieurs  les  Ministres  et  Chers  Messieurs  les  Ameri- 
cains,  merci.  Merci  pour  nous  tous,  et  du  fond  du  coeur,  de  ce  que 
vous  voulez  bien  nous  continuer  votre  indispensable  appui  en  ne 
cessant  d'etre,  avec  conviction  profonde  reconnaissance,  et  d'avance, 
la  reconnaissance  historique  d'un  pays  qui  connait  le  devoir. 

(Translation:) 

"Messrs.  Ministers, 

Mr.  Hoover,  Mr.  Rose  and  Mr,  Bicknell — 

It  is  in  your  honor  that,  moved  by  sentiments  of  gratitude,  we 
are  at  present  assembled. 

We  shall  never  forget  the  emotions  we  experienced  when,  at 
the  beginning  of  this  movement,  we  learned  that  the  Ministers  of 
Spain  and  of  the  United  States,  relying  upon  our  work  and  its 
organization,  were  willing  to  serve  as  patrons,  making  it  thereby 
their  own  and  engaging  themselves  as  earnest  fellow-workers  for 
the  purpose. 

Our  emotion  was  again  aroused  when,  upon  the  return  from 
London  of  our  devoted  colleagues,  Messrs.  Lambert  and  Francqui, 
the  latter  without  restraining  his  extreme  satisfaction,  said  to  us: 
'We  are  so  fortunate  as  to  have  at  the  head  of  our  organization  in 
London  a  man  of  action  in  every  acceptation  of  the  term,  Mr. 
Hoover.  Thanks  to  him,  our  affairs,  I  am  convinced,  will  be  well 
directed.'  This  assertion  of  Mr.  Francqui  has  now  become  an 
established  truth,  a  reality  that  relieves  us  of  pressing  anxiety. 

This  emotion  is  renewed  to-day  in  seeing  Mr.  Hoover  himself, 
and  the  members  of  the  Rockefeller  Foundation,  Messrs.  Rose  and 
Bicknell. 

We  are  a  little  nation,  we  have  courage,  but  we  have  no  power, 
and  you.  Gentlemen  of  America,  will  understand  with  what  satis- 
faction we  observe  the  manner  in  which  your  great  and  free  nation 

407 


BELGIUM 

many  emotions.  It  had  been  a  doleful  morning's  busi- 
ness, though  not  without  its  reassurance  of  the  goodness 
that  still  was  in  human  nature. 

Mr.  Hoover  went  away,  but  Dr.  Rose  and  Mr.  Bick 
nell  remained  and,  joined  by  Mr.  Henry  James,  also  a 
representative  of  the  Bockefeller  Foundation,  went  on 
a  tour  of  Belgium  and  even  of  the  invaded  portion  cf 
northern  France,  or  so  much  of  it  as  then  was  accessible. 
And  we  resumed  the  interminable  discussions  of  the  or- 
ganization of  the  interior  work  of  the  C.  R.  B.  The  distri- 
bution had  been  thus  far  directed  by  Mr.  Heineman 
from  his  private  office  there  in  the  Rue  de  Naples,  but  it 
was  becoming  evident  that  the  work  would  have  to  take 
on  a  large  scope,  and  M.  Francqui  finally  put  at  the  dis- 
posal of  the  C.  R.  B.  those  ample  suites  of  offices  in  the 
building  across  from  the  Societe  Generale  in  the  Rue  des 
Colonies.  And  when  the  C.  R.  B.,  getting  thus  duly 
under  way,  needed  some  one  acquainted  with  the  lan- 
guages, I  had  an  inspiration  and  the  thought  of  the  little 

appreciates  our  suffering  and,  in  obedience  to  a  spontaneous  and 
heartfelt  impulse,  comes  with  a  native  enthusiasm  to  aid  us  in  bear- 
ing them  and  to  prevent  us  from  being  overpowered  by  hunger 
and  cold. 

It  is  noble  of  you,  Gentlemen,  you,  who  as  a  practical  as  well 
as  a  generous  people,  possess  that  pure  and  lofty  conception  of 
humanity  which  expresses  the  best  thought  of  our  time,  and  that 
conception  will  very  soon  create  a  vital  world  conscience  that  will 
everywhere  permit  true  and  tested  souls,  believing  in  the  Right, 
once  more  to  hope. 

Gentlemen,  thank  you,  and  again  thank  you  for  all  of  us,  from 
the  bottom  of  our  hearts,  for  your  willingness  to  continue  to  lend 
us  your  indispensable  support,  and  to  be  everywhere  and  always 
with  us.  We  express  to  you  our  deep  gratitude  and,  in  advance, 
the  historic  gratitude  of  a  country  that  knows  what  Duty  means. 

408 


HERBERT  CLARK  HOOVER 

Bulle — Hermancito — and  just  as  he  was  about  to  go 
away  I  suggested  him  to  Mr.  Hoover,  and  we  had  not 
only  the  benefit  of  his  services  but  the  pleasure  of  keep- 
ing him  with  us  in  Brussels. 

Finally  the  Rhodes  scholars  began  to  arrive,  clean 
young  fellows  whom  one  could  admire  unreservedly. 
They  came  as  volunteers,  to  work  for  no  other  reward 
than  the  satisfaction  of  helping  in  a  great  humanitarian 
cause.    The  work  never  could  have  been  done  without 
them,  or  half  so  well  by  men  who  had  been  paid  for  their 
labour.    I  suppose  the  world  has  never  seen  anything 
quite  like  their  devotion;  it  used  to  amuse,  when  it  did 
not  exasperate,  us,  to  see  the  Germans  so  mystified  by 
it ;  they  could  not  understand  it,  and  were  always  trying 
to  find  out  the  real  reason  for  their  being  there.   Mes- 
sieurs les  militaires  could  never  get  out  of  their  heads 
the  suspicion  that  they  were  spies,  and  now  and  then 
they  treated  them  as  such.     The  son  of  the  Governor- 
General,   like   Walt   Whitman's   learned   astronomer, 
"lecturing  with  much  applause  there  in  the  lecture 
room,"  explained  to  his  auditors  that  the  Americans 
were  growing  rich  out  of  the  work ;  but  possibly  he  could 
imagine  no  other  motive  for  maintaining  it.    It  was,  in 
fact,  as  fine  an  example  of  idealism,  and  I  am  tempted 
to  add  of  American  idealism,  as,  in  its  ultimate  organiza- 
tion and  direct  management,  it  proved  to  be  of  Amer- 
ican enterprise  and  efficiency.     The  young  men  were 
under  the  heaviest  adjurations  from  all  of  us  to  main- 
tain a  strict  neutrality,  and  this  they  all  did.    Not  one  of 
them  was  ever  guilty  of  an  indiscretion,  not  one  of 
them  ever  brought  dishonour  upon  the  work,  or  upon 
their  nation,  or  its  flag,  or  upon  the  various  universities 
whose  honour  they  held  in  their  keeping  and  on  which 

409 


BELGIUM 

they  reflected  such  credit.  They  showed  remarkable 
tact,  and  they  were  all  neutral,  "strictly  neutral,"  as 
their  coterie  phrase  had  it.  Raymond  Swing,  a  news- 
paper correspondent,  observing  them  at  their  work,  re- 
marked, however,  that  some  were  born  neutral,  some 
achieved  neutrality,  and  some  had  neutrality  thrust  upon 
them.  The  provocation  was  often  very  strong,  what 
with  the  scenes  they  had  to  witness  and  that  odour  of 
invasion  in  which  they  lived.  But  they  kept  their  opin- 
ions to  themselves  with  a  remarkable  discretion,  and 
expressed  themselves,  in  public  at  least,  only  in  the  diplo- 
matic phrases  befitting  neutrals,  though  I  think  that 
the  classic  phrase  of  neutrality  was  pronounced  at  my 
own  table  by  Colonel  Soren  Listoe,  our  Consul  at  Rot- 
terdam, who  came  into  Brussels  on  one  of  those  late 
days  of  that  dark  December.  He,  too,  was  under  the 
injunction  to  observe  a  strict  neutrality,  and  was  deter- 
minedly doing  so.  When  I  asked  him  what  he  thought 
about  the  war  he  visibly  wrestled  with  his  feelings  for  a 
moment  and  then,  after  swallowing  once  or  twice,  with 
admirable  restraint  and  sure  of  the  mastery  over  himself, 
said: 

"Well,  if  this  war  ends  in  the  way  some  hope  that  it 
will,  the  other  side  will  have  to  pay  a  very  large  in- 
demnity!" 

The  Rockefeller  Commission  returned  from  their  tour 
and  I  suppose  there  is  no  harm  now  in  saying  that  they 
did  not  come  back  in  a  very  neutral  frame  of  mind.  I 
had  the  impression  that  the  entire  fortune  of  their  emi- 
nent patron  would  not  have  paid  for  a  single  day  the 
interest  on  the  indemnity  they  would  have  liked  to  col- 
lect from  the  other  side  if  the  war  ended  as  they  hoped 
it  would.     They  had  seen  such  sufferings  in  Belgium 

410 


HERBERT  CLARK  HOOVER 

and  northern  France  as  made  them  weep,  and  they  urged 
that  the  work  of  the  Commission  be  extended  at  least  to 
that  little  strip  of  northern  France  which  thrusts  itself 
up  into  Belgium  there  by  Givet  and  Philippeville,  where 
people  were  actually  starving. 

We  were  already  having  appeals  from  other  lands 
that  lay  outside  Belgium.  My  colleague,  Count  d'An- 
sembourg.  Charge  d'Affaires  of  Luxembourg,  was  ask- 
ing us  to  extend  the  work  of  ravitaillement  to  the  little 
duchy,  and  one  morning  the  Mayor  of  Maubeuge  and 
one  of  his  echevins  came  in  to  ask  us  to  help  them  revic- 
tual  that  city. 

And  then  Mr.  Hoover,  to  our  relief,  came  back.  He 
had  had  difficulties  in  London ;  there  were  folk  there,  as 
elsewhere,  who  took  the  view  that  the  ravitaillement  in 
Belgium  was  an  unneutral  act,  that  it  was  indirectly  an 
aid  to  the  Germans,  and  some  of  them  had  even  made 
the  cynical  statement  that  if  the  Belgians  were  to  be 
left  to  starve  it  would  require  more  German  troops  to 
subdue  the  revolutions  that  would  break  out  as  a  result 
of  hunger,  and  thereby  by  so  much  weaken  the  German 
forces.  But  he  surmounted  this  obstacle,  as  he  had  so 
many  others,  and  he  remained  long  enough  in  Brussels 
to  install  the  C.  R.  B.  in  its  new  offices  and  get  in  motion 
the  machinery  that  had  been  functioning  with  so  many 
halts  and  so  much  creaking.  He  had  Mr.  A.  N.  Con- 
nett  coming  from  America  to  act  as  manager  and  in  the 
meantime  Captain  J.  M.  Lucey,  who  had  been  directing 
the  Rotterdam  office,  came  to  relieve  Mr.  Heineman, 
who  had  so  unselfishly  sacrificed  his  own  affairs  to  this 
cause. 

And  so,  as  the  short  December  days  were  declining 
with  the  year,  the  great  work  was  set  in  motion,  with 

411 


BELGIUM 

infinite  toil  and  pain,  with  many  a  psychological  prob- 
lem, with  such  delicate  management  and  humouring  of 
human  feeings,  jealousies,  susceptibilities,  and,  what  is 
worst  of  all  in  this  world  to  endure,  the  irritations  of 
"grands  faiseurs  de  petites  cJioses/' 

The  Belgians  do  not  make  as  much  of  Christmas  as 
we  do,  or  as  do  the  English.  With  them  the  great  fete 
day  of  the  children  falls  on  the  sixth  of  December,  and 
the  night  before  children  lie  awake  in  the  excitement  of 
the  mystery  of  the  coming  of  St.  Nicholas  on  his  ass,  for 
which  they  place  a  carrot  on  a  plate.  I  suppose  they  cele- 
brate that  day  in  order  to  give  him  time  to  cross  the 
ocean  and  be  ready  to  descend  our  chimneys  a  fortnight 
later.  The  children  could  not  be  sure  that  he  would 
come  that  year  of  1914,  for  there  were  none  but  sad 
homes  in  Belgium ;  and  yet  something  of  the  spirit  of  the 
time  was  abroad,  too.  For  when  I  asked  for  a  passier- 
schein  for  a  little  girl  of  four  years — one  of  whose  grand- 
fathers was  our  famous  General  Logan,  and  whose 
other  grandfather  was  my  friend  M.  St.-Paul  de  Sincay 
— I  had  no  trouble  whatever  in  procuring  it. 

We  were  loath,  all  of  us,  to  see  the  baby  go.  She  used 
to  come  to  see  me  and  only  a  day  or  so  before  she  went 
she  had  come  expressly  to  whisper  to  me  a  most  impor- 
tant secret,  which  I  am  now  at  liberty  to  divulge,  though 
that  is  more  than  I  can  say  of  many  another  secret  whis- 
pered to  me  in  those  days  by  lips  not  quite  so  innocent : 
the  secret  was  that  she  had  two  chocolate  bonbons  hid- 
den in  her  muff,  one  for  her  and  one  for  me.  .  .  .  She 
had  been  almost  an  international  incident.  Several 
times  Mr.  Herrick  had  sent  for  her  to  come  to  Paris, 
and  Mr.  Walter  van  R.  Berry  had  once  made  the  trip 
especially  to  escort  her  out,  but  there  were  always  dan- 

412 


HERBERT  CLARK  HOOVER • 

gers  and  complications.  .  .  .  The  motor-car  that  finally 
took  her  to  the  Holland  frontier  could  not  cross  the 
border,  but  there  was  another  car  waiting  on  the  other 
side.  And  in  her  little  white  hood  and  coat,  with  her 
little  white  muff,  she  walked  the  rod  or  two  alone,  with 
no  fear  of  the  German  sentinel  standing  there  or  any- 
thought  of  him  as  an  enemy;  and  in  passing,  just  at  the 
frontier,  she  gave  him  her  hand  with  the  gesture  of  a 
queen,  and,  smiling,  he  handed  her  gently  across. 

We  came  at  last  to  Christmas  Eve — the  eve  of  the  sad- 
dest Christmas,  in  some  ways,  I  had  ever  known.  The 
Germans  had  forbidden  the  sale  of  the  little  buttons 
bearing  the  pictures  of  the  King  and  Queen,  and  the 
throngs  that  moved  through  the  streets  were  depressed. 
There,  from  the  Montagne  de  la  Cour,  where  I  used  to 
love  to  look  out  over  the  lower  city,  its  roofs  touched  by 
the  soft  glow  of  the  setting  sun,  the  spire  of  the  Hotel 
de  Ville  was  beautiful  as  ever,  and  yet  over  the  whole 
city  there  brooded  a  sadness.  In  the  Pare  Royal  there 
was  an  enormous  tree,  blazing  with  thousands  of  electric 
lights  in  coloured  bulbs,  like  the  one  in  Madison  Square 
at  that  season,  and  German  soldiers  gathered  around  it 
and  sang  their  choruses.  There  were  little  Christmas- 
trees  in  all  the  blazing  windows  of  the  ministeres  in  the 
Rue  de  la  Loi ;  at  the  King's  palace  at  Laeken  a  great 
dinner  for  the  officers.  For  weeks  they  had  been  cutting 
down  the  fir-trees  in  the  Belgian  woods  for  their  Christ- 
mas-trees ;  there  were  celebrations  for  the  soldiers  every- 
where. I  do  not  know  how  many  were  required  for  the 
Germans  at  Brussels,  in  order  that  they  might  fittingly 
celebrate  the  coming  to  this  earth  of  the  lowly  Nazarene, 
the  advent  of  peace  on  earth  and  the  impulse  of  good 
will  toward  men,  but  each  company  had  to  have  one, 

413 


BELGIUM 

and  at  Liege  alone  seven  hundred  trees  were  required. 

But  our  work  was  organized  at  last,  and  on  that 
Christmas  Eve  at  the  Legation,  the  Marquis  of  Villalo- 
bar  and  Mr.  Hoover  and  Baron  Lambert  and  M. 
Francqui  and  I,  were  agreed  finally  on  the  last,  or  what 
seemed  then  the  last,  of  the  troublesome  details,  and 
when  he  had  agreed  M.  Francqui  leaped  up,  crying  in 
his  amusing  way : 

"Via,  v'la,  v'la,  v'la!"  and,  bending  his  stout  form  over 
the  table,  wrote  it  down  before  any  of  us  could  change 
his  mind  again. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hoover,  Dr.  Rose,  Mr.  James,  Mr. 
Bicknell,  Frederick  Palmer  and  Gibson  were  there  to 
dinner  that  night.  After  dinner  Dr.  Rose  drew  me 
aside,  with  many  expressions  of  appreciation  and  kind- 
ness, saying  that  the  Rockefeller  Foundation  was  pre- 
pared to  aid  the  ravitaiUement  to  the  full  extent  of  its 
resources;  that  he  and  his  colleagues  had  been  every- 
where in  Belgium,  had  seen  everything,  had  taken  no 
man's  word  for  anything,  had  been  in  the  homes  of  the 
poorest — and  he  spoke  with  tears  in  his  eyes  of  their  suf- 
ferings, their  patience,  their  forbearance,  and  their  char- 
ity. Not  a  whimper  anywhere,  no  unkindness;  only 
that  superb  fortitude,  that  splendid  faith  and  unwearied 
resistance  that  marked  the  Belgian  nation  then  as  it 
marks  it.  still.  I  was  moved  and  grateful,  and  we  were 
all  relieved  by  the  thought  that  the  ravitaillement  was 
assured  until  the  first  of  September. 

Christmas  day  was  stinging  cold  and  sharp,  the  trees 
all  white  with  hoar-frost,  and  there  was  something  of  the 
traditional  spirit  of  the  festival  in  the  air,  because  the 
young  Americans  who  had  come  to  work  for  the  C.  R.  B. 
tried  to  make  the  day  happy  for  the  children.  Mr.  Lewis 

414 


HERBERT  CLARK  HOOVER 

Richard,  who  lived  in  Brussels,  had  a  Christmas-tree  in 
his  home  at  Forest  for  the  children  of  the  commune; 
they  came,  six  hundred  of  them,  clattering  along  in 
wooden  shoes,  while  the  orchestra  played  the  "Stai* 
Spangled  Banner,"  a  tune  that  all  Brussels  musicians 
were  practising  in  those  days.  There  were  screams  of 
childish  surprise  and  delight  at  the  Christmas  tree,  the 
top  of  which  brushed  the  high  ceiling  of  the  drawing- 
room,  and  chocolate  and  cake — real  cake,  gateau  de 
heurre — and  gifts  of  clothing  and  candy  and  toys,  and  a 
little  tot  in  white  breathlessly  reciting  a  little  speech  to 
express  "la  reconnaissance  la  plus  profonde  de  toutes 
les  petites  aheilles,  vos  protegees!" 

Brussels  children,  too,  were  all  excited  by  the  reports 
of  the  Christmas  ship  that  had  arrived  from  America 
'  with  gifts  for  them  all.  There  had  never  been  a  public 
reference  in  Belgium  to  what  America  was  doing;  there 
was  not  a  word  of  it  in  any  one  of  the  journals  that  were 
springing  up  to  replace  those  Belgian  newspapers  that 
had  made  it  a  point  of  patriotism  not  to  appear  while 
the  Germans  were  there,  but  the  news  had  got  abroad 
and  was  known  everywhere.  There  was  even  a  message 
from  M.  Max  in  his  prison  at  Gratz,  in  Silesia.  And  the 
day  was  profoundly  touching  and  significant,  so  many 
and  so  beautiful  were  the  expressions  of  gratitude  and 
good  will  that  came  pouring  in. 

The  toys  which  the  American  children  had  sent  in  the 
Christmas  ship  over  to  the  Belgian  children  were  to  be 
distributed  on  Sunday,  and  when  M.  Lemonnier,  the 
acting  Burgomaster,  came  to  tell  me  of  it  and  added  that 
the  people  of  Brussels  wished  to  make  a  manifestation 
in  honour  of  America  on  New  Year's  Day,  I  was  aghast 
at  the  idea  of  seeing  the  Rue  Belliard  and  the  Rue  de 

415 


BELGIUM 

Treves  crowded,  and  urged  M.  Lemonnier  to  suppress 
both  manifestations,  explaining  that  the  time  was  not 
yet  ripe  for  such  expressions;  and  so  it  was  arranged 
that  the  distribution  of  toys  should  be  made  quietly  in 
the  schools. 


LX 

NEW   YEAE's  day 

I  HAD  asked  that  there  be  no  manifestation  in  Amer- 
ica's honour  that  New  Year's  Day,  for,  since  assem- 
blages were  forbidden,  it  could  only  result  in  embarrass- 
ment for  the  officials  of  Brussels  and  difficulties  for  the 
people;  the  Belgians  had  understood  instantly,  and  the 
word  had  gone  over  the  city  that  the  demonstration  be- 
fore the  Legation  was  not  to  take  place.  And  then  a 
strange  thing  happened.  In  the  morning,  there  before 
the  door  of  the  Legation,  were  two  or  three  officers  of 
the  Brussels  police  in  their  blue  uniforms,  smart  kepis, 
great  blue  capes,  white  gloves,  and  their  straight  swords. 
And  there  on  a  table  in  the  hall  was  a  blank  book,  bound 
handsomely  in  morocco,  lying  open  at  the  first  of  its 
white  pages,  with  the  inscription,  '^1  Janvier  1915" 
When  I  asked  Gustave  about  it  he  smiled  and  shook  his 
head  discreetly,  and  when  I  went  out  for  a  walk  the 
agents  de  police  merely  raised  their  white-gloved  hands 
in  salute. 

And  then,  all  day  long,  the  people  came  quietly  down 
the  Rue  de  Treves,  in  pairs  or  in  little  groups,  a  constant 
procession.  Those  of  the  Quartier  Leopold  were  in  for- 
mal dress,  frock-coats  and  high  hats;  the  others  were 
endimanches,  wearing  little  American  flags  as  houton- 
nieres,  some  of  them  buttons  with  portraits  of  the  Presi- 
dent or  of  his  Minister  at  Brussels.  They  came,  signed 
their  names  in  the  book,  left  their  cards,  and  went  away, 
lifting  their  high  hats  without  a  word.    Those  that  had 

417 


BELGIUM 

not  time  to  sign  left  their  cards;  the  little  latch  in  the 
street-door  was  clicking  all  day  long.  There  were  all 
sorts  of  cards :  the  engraved  cards  of  princes  and  noble- 
men, bearing  the  names  of  old  families ;  there  were  cards 
of  trades-people,  and  even  bits  of  cardboard  on  which 
blanchisseuses  had  traced  their  names.  And  on  the 
cards  were  written  all  sorts  of  sentiments:  the  formal 
"P.  F." — pour  feliciter — or  "Felicitation  et  Remercie- 
ments" — expressions  of  gratitude  in  all  possible  ways; 
now  and  then,  in  some  honest  workman's  hand,  in  Flem- 
ish, the  simple,  touching  word,  "Dank"  All  day  long 
the  silent  procession  streamed  by,  all  day  long  the  latch 
in  the  street-door  clicked,  and  by  night  the  book  was 
filled  with  names  and  there  were  whole  baskets  full  of 
cards,  literally  thousands  of  them. 

There  were  letters,  too,  and  flowers — ^great  bouquets 
and  baskets  that  filled  the  whole  Legation,  turning  it 
into  a  bower  of  roses  and  of  those  lovely  orchids  of 
which  Belgium  is  so  prodigal.  Late  in  the  night  they 
were  still  coming,  the  latch  was  still  clicking,  the  cards 
were  still  falling  through  that  slit  in  the  outer  door — a 
beautiful  expression  of  the  gratitude  of  a  whole  city,  a 
whole  nation,  for  what  America  had  tried  to  do  for  them 
in  their  distress. 

There  were  many  callers,  too.  All  afternoon  the 
drawing-rooms  were  filled,  all  the  Americans  in  town 
and  many  English  and  many  Belgians  besides,  with,  of 
course,  Villalobar  and  the  secretaries  of  legation  and  the 
other  Ministers  left  in  Brussels. 

And  in  the  midst  of  the  reception  a  footman  brought 
up  the  card  of  a  German  officer !  I  went  downstairs  and 
there  was  a  pale  little  officer  in  full  uniform — sword  and 
helmet.    He  came  to  tell  me  that  his  wife  wished  to  help 

418 


NEW  YEAR'S  DAY 

to  re-establish  the  lace  industry  in  Belgium;  that  she 
would  open  a  shop  or  a  depots  buy  the  lace  from  the  Bel- 
gians and  send  the  lace  to  America — and  he  wished  me  to 
have  the  tariff  taken  off  lace!  I  could  tell  him,  as  an 
old,  though  somewhat  disillusioned  if  not  discouraged 
free-trader,  that  the  American  Congress  would  hardly 
go  as  far  as  he  wished  in  aiding  his  industry,  however 
tender  its  infancy.  I  went  back  upstairs,  and  the  Bel- 
gians had  all  fled  as  from  a  pestilence — not  one  was  left, 
and  Villalobar  standing  there  with  that  humorous  ex- 
pression of  his,  heaved  a  heavy  sigh  and  said: 

"We  are  saved!" 

That  New  Year's  Day,  so  full  of  meaning  for  us 
at  the  Legation  because  of  the  outpouring  of  a  nation's 
heart  in  gratitude,  produced  the  curious  amelioration 
that  high  days  and  holidays  everywhere  bring  to  men. 
In  one  of  those  currents  of  feeling  that  so  mysteriously 
make  themselves  felt  in  whole  populations  there  was 
something  like  a  breath  of  fresh  vital  air ;  because  it  was 
a  new  year  there  was  a  new  hope,  a  sensation  of  relief 
that  an  old  and  evil  year  was  dead.  That  amazing  phe- 
nomenon, which  found  its  springs  in  the  deep  wells  of  the 
Belgian  nature,  that  everlasting  and  never-tiring  resil- 
iency, lifted  them  up,  and  they  felt  that  better  times  were 
ahead;  with  the  spring  the  Allies  would  advance,  the 
Germans  would  go,  the  war  would  end.  The  feeling 
pervaded  all  classes.  And  then  an  event  occurred  that 
sent  a  thrill  of  patriotism  pulsing  through  every  heart, 
an  event  that  was  the  expression  of  a  single  great  man — 
one  of  those  rare  and  preeminent  personalities,  those 
moral  heroes  that  somehow  miraculously  appear  upon 
the  earth  in  times  of  great  stress  and  trial  and  sum  up 
and  express  their  people  and  their  times.    Belgium,  for 

419 


BELGIUM 

so  small  a  nation,  was  rich  in  two  such  transcendent 
characters:  King  Albert  was  one,  then  at  that  moment 
on  the  flooded  reaches  of  the  Yser,  the  symbol  of  a  na- 
tion's unsullied  honour  and  of  his  people's  force  and  re- 
sistance ;  and  now,  suddenly,  a  second  was  revealed  who 
resumed  in  his  great  character  the  moral  courage  of  his 
race.  On  Christmas  day  he  had  sat  in  his  austere  study 
in  the  grey  old  ecclesiastical  palace  in  Malines,  its  roof 
fallen  in  from  the  shells  that  had  rained  upon  it  during 
the  fierce  battles  of  August  and  September,  penning  in 
sorrow,  but  in  the  lofty  valiance  of  an  indomitable  will, 
a  pastoral  letter  to  his  bruised  and  scattered  and  tor- 
tured flock.  It  was  that  great  prince  of  the  Church,  the 
power  and  clarity  of  whose  intellect,  like  the  rigid  aus- 
terity of  his  almost  monastic  life,  recalled  the  early  fa- 
thers of  Christianity — Desire  Joseph,  Cardinal  Mercier, 
Archbishop  of  Malines.  He  was  proud  of  being  a  Wal- 
loon. He  had  been  born  in  Braine  I'Alleud,  there,  near 
the  field  of  Waterloo  in  1851;  he  had  been  educated  at 
Louvain,  in  the  same  university  that  had  given  Father 
Damien  to  history ;  and  now  he  was  the  Primate  of  Bel- 
gium. He  was  called  to  Rome  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
war  to  render  the  last  homages  to  the  late  Pius  X,  and 
to  participate  in  the  election  of  the  new  Pope;  he  had 
returned  to  Belgium  to  find  his  land  laid  waste  by  the 
sword,  his  alma  mater  destroyed,  his  see-city  in  ruins, 
and  the  roof  of  his  own  palace  open  to  the  sky.  And 
during  the  months  of  that  autumn  and  early  winter  he 
had  been  quietly  visiting  the  devastated  pastures  of  his 
flock. 

I  had  not  seen  him  at  that  time ;  it  was  not  until  weeks 
after  that  New  Year's  Day  that  I  had  the  privilege  of 
making  his  acquaintance,  and  the  ultimate  honour  of 

420 


NEW  YEAR'S  DAY 

claiming  him  among  my  friends.  He  came,  in  the  sim- 
plicity that  was  an  integral  element  of  his  greatness, 
one  February  morning  to  express  his  gratitude  for  what 
America  had  done  for  his  nation,  and  to  giv  me  an  auto- 
graphed copy  of  his  Pastoral,  which  at  that  moment  had 
somehow  got  out  of  Belgium  and  gone  around  the  world 
and  made  him  famous. 

He  entered,  advanced,  tall  and  strong  and  spare,  in 
the  long  black  soutane  with  the  red  piping  and  the  sash, 
not  with  the  stately,  measured  pace  that  one  associates 
with  the  red  hat,  but  with  long,  quick  strides,  kicking  out 
with  impatience  the  skirt  of  his  soutane  before  him  as  he 
walked,  as  though  it  impeded  his  movements.  He  was 
impressive  in  his  great  height  and  he  bent  slightly  for- 
ward with  an  effect  of  swooping  on,  like  an  avenging 
justice.  But  his  hand  was  outheld,  and  in  his  mobile 
countenance  and  kindly  eyes  there  was  a  smile,  as  of 
sweetness  and  light,  that  illumined  the  long,  lean  visage. 

When  he  had  laid  off  the  low  black  beaver  hat,  with 
its  cord  and  tassels  of  red  and  gold,  and  seated  himself 
in  one  of  the  Government's  ugly  leather  chairs,  he  ad- 
justed the  little  red  calotte  that  covered  the  poll  whereon 
the  grey  hair  had  long  been  thinning,  'drew  off  his  red 
gloves,  and  as  he  sat  his  long  fingers  played  for  an  in- 
stant with  the  gold  pectoral  cross  and  chain  that  hung 
before  him,  then  found  a  pair  of  common  steel-rimmed 
eye-glasses  and  played  with  them  instead.  The  detail 
seemed  to  be  expressive  of  the  utter  simplicity  of  the 
man  in  all  that  concerned  him  personally;  for  if,  in  all 
that  pertained  to  his  high  office  as  a  prince  of  the  Church, 
he  was  correct,  punctilious  even,  in  all  purely  personal 
ways  he  was  as  simple,  as  unpretentious,  as  modest  as 
one  of  those  rugged  primeval  natures  to  which  one  in- 

421 


BELGIUM 

stantly  compared  him.  His  hands  were  large  and  pow- 
erful and  of  the  weathered  aspect  of  his  face.  It  was  a 
countenance  full  of  serene  light,  with  little  of  the  typ- 
ically ecclesiastical  about  it:  a  high  brow,  a  long  nose, 
lean  cheeks,  strong  jaw  and  a  large  mobile  mouth,  hu- 
mourous and  sensitive — the  mouth  of  the  orator,  but 
with  thin  lips  that  could  close  in  impenetrable  silence. 
The  eyes  were  blue,  and  they  twinkled  with  a  lively  in- 
telligence and  kindly  humour.  Perhaps  I  could  do  no 
better,  in  the  effort  to  give  some  impression  of  him,  than 
to  say  that,  had  it  not  been  for  those  touches  of  red  in 
his  black  garb,  he  would  have  recalled  some  tall,  gaunt, 
simple,  affectionate  Irish  priest,  whose  life  was  passed 
in  obscure  toil  among  the  poor,  in  humble  homes,  amid 
lowly  lives  whose  every  care  and  preoccupation  he  kneW 
and  sympathized  with,  going  about  at  night  alone  in  all 
weathers,  unsparing  of  himself,  visiting  the  sick  and  the 
imprisoned,  forgetting  to  eat,  accustomed  to  long  weary 
vigils,  and  of  an  independence  that  needed  none  of  the 
reliances  or  approvals  of  this  earth. 

There  was  something  primal,  original  about  him,  a 
man  out  of  the  people  yet  above  them — one  of  those  rare 
and  lofty  personalities  who  give  the  common  man  hope 
because  they  are  like  him,  and  yet  better,  greater  than 
he,  and  so  create  in  him  new  aspirations  and  higher  hopes 
because  they  demonstrate  in  their  sufficient  selves  what 
a  common  man  may  become  if  only  he  have  the  will  by 
devotion,  by  abnegation,  by  sacrifice,  and  by  love.  In 
his  mere  presence  one  felt  all  little  things  shrivel  up,  and 
wondered  why  small  annoyances  should  fret  and  irri- 
tate; and  when  he  had  gone  the  impalpable  influences  of 
his  lofty  spirit  hung  for  hours  about  one  in  the  air.  He 
was  the  incarnation  of  the  principle  that  is  the  antithesis 

422 


NEW  YEAR'S  DAY 

of  that  upon  which  the  nation  that  had  overrun  his  coun- 
try is  founded,  and  because  of  this  all,  its  armies  and  all 
its  guns  and  bayonets  and  Kommandanturs  were  power- 
less ;  its  minions,  who  had  not  hesitated  to  destroy  whole 
cities  and  communities,  did  not  dare  even  so  much  as  to 
touch  a  hair  of  his  head.  Ultimate  history,  written  at 
that  hour  when  mankind  shall  have  emerged^out  of  the 
darkness  and  savagery  of  these  times  into  the  light  of 
those  better  days  that  must  come  if  there  is  any  meaning 
or  order  in  the  universe,  will  celebrate  the  astonishing 
coincidence  that,  in  the  little  nation  which  the  most  ruth- 
less power  of  all  times  chose  as  the  first  and  most  tragic 
of  its  many  victims,  there  was  a  man  whose  personality, 
alone  and  of  itself,  proved  the  superiority  of  moral  over 
physical  force. 

The  visit  with  which  the  Cardinal  honoured  me  that 
February  morning  was  coincidental  with  the  hour  when, 
in  his  long  struggle  with  the  German  authorities,  he  had 
challenged  them  to  submit  to  an  impartial  tribunal  their 
evidence  concerning  the  atrocities;  he  had  publicly  pro- 
posed a  court  to  be  composed  of  three  German  and 
three  Belgian  judges,  to  be  presided  over  by  the  Amer- 
ican Minister  at  Brussels.  The  suggestion  had  not  as 
yet  been  acted  upon  and  I  thought  from  the  twinkle  in 
his  eyes  that  morning  that  he  had  not  much  hope  that  it 
ever  would  be. 

That,  however,  was  in  February,  six  weeks  after  the 
incident  of  the  pastoral  letter.  We  had  no  sooner 
learned  of  that  letter  than  we  heard  that  the  Cardinal 
had  been  arrested.  The  news  spread  through  Brussels 
on  a  Monday  morning.  The  letter,  written  at  Christ- 
mas, had  been  appointed  to  be  read  in  all  the  churches 
on  the  first  Sunday  in  January,  and  that  was  done.    No 

423 


BELGIUM 

synopsis  of  the  letter  could  give  any  notion  of  its 
strength,  its  dauntless  courage,  its  serene  and  lofty 
spirit.  It  breathed  patriotism,  and  yet  it  counselled  pa- 
tience and  even  obedience  to  the  authorities.  But  His 
Eminence  made  it  plain  that  the  authorities  then  in  the 
land  were  not  there  by  right,  that  their  authority  was 
but  passing  and  temporary,  and  that  they  were  to  be 
obeyed  only  in  their  efforts  to  execute  the  laws  of  the 
country  as  an  occupying  Power.  And  it  closed  in  a 
strain  of  great  eloquence  and  great  sorrow — a  strain  that 
resumed  all  the  anguish  of  his  people  and  his  land.  When 
in  translation  it  loses  little  of  its  force: 

"I  realize  better  than  any  one,  perhaps,  what  our  poor 
country  has  suffered,"  he  wrote;  ''and  no  Belgian  will 
doubt,  I  hope,  that  my  citizen's  and  cardinal's  soul  has 
been  tortured  by  the  thought  of  all  these  afflictions.  The 
last  four  months  seem  to  have  been  a  century. 

"By  thousands  our  brave  ones  have  been  slaughtered; 
wives  and  mothers  weep  for  the  absent  they  will  never 
see  again ;  homes  are  broken  up ;  misery  is  spreading  and 
anguish  is  poignant.  At  Malines,  at  Antwerp,  I  have 
known  the  population  of  two  large  cities  to  be  sub- 
jected, one  during  six  hours  and  the  other  during  thirty- 
four,  to  a  continuous  bombardment  and  to  have  been  in 
the  throes  of  death.  I  have  visited  the  most  devastated 
regions  of  my  diocese — Duffel,  Lierre,  Berlaer,  Saint- 
Rombaut,  Konings-Hoyckt,  Mortsel,  Waelhem,  Muy- 
sen,  Wavre  -  Sainte  -  Catherine,  Wavre  -  Notre  -  Djtoie, 
Sempst,  Weerde,  Eppeghem,  Hofstade,  Elewyt,  Ryme- 
nam,  Boortmeerbeek,  Wespelaer,  Haecht,  Werchter- 
Wackerzeel,  Rotselaer,  Tremeloo,  Louvain,  and  the 
suburban  agglomerations  (of  Malines) :  Blauwput,  Kes- 
sel-Loo,  Boven-Loo,  Linden,  Herent,  Thildonck,  Bue- 

424 


NEW  YEAR'S  DAY 

ken,  Relst,  Aerschot,  Wesemael,  Hersselst,  Diest, 
Schaffen,  Molenstede,  Rillaer,  Gelrode — and  what  I  saw 
of  ruins  and  ashes  exceeds  anything  I  could  have  im- 
agined. Certain  parts  of  my  diocese  which  I  have  not 
yet  had  time  to  visit — i.e.j  Haekendover,  Roosbeek,  Bau- 
tersem,  Budingen,  Neer-Linter,  Ottignies,  Mousty, 
Wavre,  Beyghem,  Capelle-au-Bois,  Humbeek,  Blae- 
veld — experienced  the  same  ravages.  Churches,  schools, 
asylums,  hospitals,  convents,  in  considerable  numbers, 
are  almost  entirely  destroyed  or  in  ruins.  Entire  villages 
have  practically  disappeared.  At  Werchter-Wacker- 
zeel,  for  instance,  out  of  380  homes  130  remain ;  at  Tre- 
meloo,  two- thirds  of  the  community  has  been  razed;  at 
Bueken  out  of  100  houses  20  are  left;  at  Schaffen,  a  vil- 
lage of  200  dwellings,  189  have  disappeared;  at  Louvain 
one-third  of  the  town  has  been  destroyed,  1,074  build- 
ings have  disappeared ;  within  the  city  limits  and  includ- 
ing the  suburbs  of  Kessel-Loo  and  Herent  and  Heverle, 
there  is  a  tolal  of  1,823  houses  burned. 

"In  that  beloved  city  of  Louvain,  from  which  I  cannot 
succeed  in  detaching  my  thoughts,  the  superb  collegiale 
of  St.  Peter  will  never  recover  its  splendour;  the  old 
college  of  St.  Ives;  the  Institute  of  Fine  Arts  of  the 
city;  the  commercial  and  consular  school  attached  to  the 
University;  the  venerable  "Halles"  or  market  buildings; 
our  substantial  library  with  its  collections,  its  incunab- 
ula, its  original  manuscripts,  its  archives,  the  gallery 
of  its  illustrious  men  from  the  first  days  of  its  founda- 
tion, portraits  of  the  Rectors,  Chancellors  and  famous 
professors,  at  the  sight  of  which  masters  and  students  of 
to-day  became  imbued  with  traditional  nobility  of  char- 
acter and  went  at  their  work  with  renewed  ardour, — all 
this  accumulation  of  intellectual,  historic  and  artistic 

425 


BELGIUM 

riches,  the  fruit  of  five  centuries  of  toil,  everything,  has 
been  destroyed. 

"Many  parishes  were  deprived  of  their  curate.  I  hear 
again  the  plaintive  voice  of  an  old  man  whom  I  asked 
if  mass  had  been  celebrated  in  his  dismantled  church  the 
past  Sunday. 

"  'It  is  now  two  months  since  we  have  had  a  priest; 
said  he.  The  curate  and  the  vicar  were  in  a  concentra- 
tion camp  at  Miinster,  not  far  from  Hanover. 

"Thousands  of  Belgian  citizens  have  thus  been  de- 
ported to  German  prisons — to  Miinster,  to  Celle,  to 
Magdeburg.  Miinster  alone  held  3,100  civilian  prison- 
ers. History  will  tell  the  story  of  the  physical  and  moral 
torture  they  endured. 

"Thousands  of  innocent  ones  were  shot;  I  do  not  pos- 
sess the  sinister  necrology,  but  I  know  that  at  Aerschot 
ninety-one  were  killed  and  that  there — under  the  menace 
of  death — their  fellow-citizens  were  compelled  to  dig  the 
burial-trenches.  In  the  agglomeration  of  Louvain  and 
nearby  communes,  one  hundred  and  seventy-six  persons, 
men  and  women,  old  men  and  women  with  children  at 
breast,  rich  and  poor,  the  strong  and  the  weak — were 
shot  down  or  burned. 

"In  my  diocese  alone  I  know  that  thirteen  priests 
were  executed.  One  of  them,  the  curate  of  Gelrode,  fell 
undoubtedly  like  a  martyr.  I  made  a  pilgrimage  to  his 
tomb  and,  surrounded  by  the  flock  that  he  had  pastured 
only  yesterday  with  the  zeal  of  an  apostle,  I  asked  him 
to  safeguard  from  on  high  his  parish,  the  diocese,  and 
the  country. 

"We  can  neither  count  our  dead  nor  measure  the 
extent  of  our  ruins.  What  would  it  be  if  we  undertook 
to  visit  the  regions  of  Liege,  Namur,  Andenne,  Dinant, 

426 


NEW  YEAR'S  DAY 

Tamlnes,  Charleroi,  and  then  toward  Virton  and  the 
valley  of  the  Semois  river,  all  the  provinces  of  Luxem- 
bourg toward  Termonde,  Dixmude  and  our  two  Flan- 
ders?" 

The  letter  was  read  in  all  the  pulpits  and  within  a  few 
hours  many  of  the  priests  in  the  provinces  who  had  read 
the  letter  had  been  arrested,  as  well  as  several  priests  in 
Brussels,  among  them  the  Doyen  of  the  collegiate  of 
Ste.-Gudule.  And  at  six  o'clock  on  Monday  morning 
there  were  soldiers  before  the  Episcopal  palace  at  Ma- 
lines.  The  Cardinal  was  saying  mass  in  his  chapel  when 
a  priest  came  saying  that  a  German  officer  was  waiting 
to  see  him. 

"Tell  him  that  I  am  saying  mass,"  said  the  Cardinal. 

The  priest  retired  and  returned  to  report  that  the 
officer  said  that  the  Cardinal  must  come  at  once.  The 
Cardinal  took  off  his  vestments  and  went  out,  and  the 
officer  handed  him  a  letter  from  General  von  Bissing 
covering  eight  pages  and  demanding  an  immediate  an- 
swer. The  Cardinal  explained  that  since  the  letter  was 
in  German  he  would  need  time  to  reflect;  he  would  send 
a  reply.  But  the  officer  said  that  he  would  have  to  insist 
that  the  order  be  carried  out. 

"But  I  give  you  my  word  of  honour  not  to  leave  my 
palace." 

This  would  not  satisfy  the  officer;  he  would  have  to 
remain  with  him. 

"You  mean  in  the  room  with  me?"  asked  the  aston- 
ished Cardinal. 

The  officer,  abashed  by  the  glance  in  the  fearless  eyes, 
said  that  he  would  wait  in  the  courtyard  of  the  palace. 
It  was  raining  and  the  officer  waited  all  day  while  His 

427 


BELGIUM 

Eminence,  in  no  hurry,  prepared  his  reply.  General 
von  Bissing  in  his  letter  put  six  questions  to  the  Cardi- 
nal. He  began  by  saying  that  the  Cardinal  had  pre- 
sumed too  far  upon  what  Bissing  was  pleased  to  call 
their  "personal"  relations,  and  the  Cardinal,  replying  to 
this  proposition,  said  that  His  Excellency  had  evidently 
misunderstood,  or  had  not  sufficiently  understood,  their 
relations,  which  were  not  at  all  personal  but  wholly  offi- 
cial; aside  from  this  he  added — no  doubt  with  a  touch 
of  the  Walloon  sense  of  humour — their  relations  were 
simply  those  of  Christians.  The  Cardinal  said  that  he 
was  a  Belgian,  with  Belgian  sentiments,  prejudices,  feel- 
ings, and  loyalty;  that  he  had  written  his  letter  out  of 
those  feelings  and  that  he  could  not  retract  it,  and  he 
concluded:  "This  answer  will  suffice  as  an  answer 
equally  to  all  the  other  five  questions." 

Freiherr  von  Bissing  was  not  a  patient  nor  always  a 
diplomatic  man,  and  when  he  read  the  letter  which  the 
officer,  after  waiting  there  all  day  in  the  rain,  brought 
back  to  Brussels  in  the  evening,  he  might  have  gone  to 
forcible  extremes  had  not  the  counsels  of  Baron  von  der 
Lancken  prevailed.  Lancken  motored  up  to  Malines 
the  next  morning  and  waited  on  the  Cardinal.  The  con- 
versation was  long  and  courteous.  The  Cardinal  in- 
sisted that  it  was  unjust  to  punish  his  priests  for  read- 
ing a  letter  that  he  had  prepared,  and  he  refused  to 
retract  or  to  modify  the  statement  in  his  pastoral,  and 
the  incident  was  assumed  to  be  closed.^     , 

^  During  that  discussion  this  telegram^  addressed  "Cardinal  Mer- 
cier,  Brussels,"  came  from  the  Associated  Press  in  America:  "Is  it 
true  that  you  have  been  arrested  and  are  now  a  prisoner?" 

To  this  telegram  the  Cardinal  prepared  a  reply  saying:  "Some  of 

428 


NEW  YEAR'S  DAY 

The  next  day,  however,  the  Governor-General  sent  an 
order  to  the  priests  of  the  diocese  of  Malines  in  which  he 
said  that  the  Cardinal,  ".  .  .  on  my  representation  as  to 
the  trouble  and  irritation  caused  by  his  pastoral  letter 
among  the  population,  has  declared  to  me  at  Malines, 
verbally  and  in  writing,  that  he  had  no  intention  what- 
ever to  provoke  such  an  action  and  had  expected  no  such 
result.  He  had  merely  tried  to  convince  the  population 
of  the  necessity  of  obeying  the  occupying  powers,  even  in 
the  case  of  the  Belgian  patriots  who  felt  internally  in 
opposition  with  the  German  administration!  In  the 
event  of  my  fearing  any  such  irritating  effect  the  Cardi- 
nal would  not  persist  in  desiring  on  the  part  of  his  clergy, 
and  in  accordance  with  the  provisions  of  the  con- 
clusion of  his  pastoral  letter,  a  repetition  of  its  public 
reading  on  following  Sundays,  or  that  it  be  any  further 
spread. 

"Now  this  hypothesis  has  arisen  and  therefore  I  re- 
peat my  prohibition  of  January  2,  concerning  the  public 
reading  and  propagation  of  the  pastoral  letter.  I  re- 
mind the  clergy  that  they  will  place  themselves  in  op- 

my  priests  have  been  arrested  because  of  the  letter  I  wrote;  others 
have  been  menaced  with  threats  of  prison  and  deportation  to  Ger- 
many, while  others  have  been  fined.  As  for  me,  they  have  done 
nothing  more  than  to  forbid  me  to  leave  my  palace." 

The  Germans  did  not  send  this  reply.  The  next  day  there  came 
an  officer  saying  that  since,  the  incident  was  closed  it  was  desired 
that  the  Cardinal' modify  the  telegram,  and  he  wrote  one  which,  in 
effect,  said:  You  will  understand  that  in  the  circumstances  in  which 
I  am  placed  it  is  difficult  for  me  to  reply  to  your  telegram.  Please 
acknowledge  receipt  of  this." 

But  the  Cardinal  never  received  a  response. 

429 


BELGIUM 

position  to  the  desire  which  their  Cardinal  has  expressed 
to  me  if  they  act  in  opposition  to  my  prohibition."^ 

The  clergy  were,  for  a  moment,  uncertain,  but  not  for 
long.    Monseigneur  Evrard,  Doyen  of  Brussels,  went 
to  Malines,  and  on  his  return  sent  each  cure  a  note,  which 
I  translate: 
Monsieur  le  Cure : 

I  have  just  returned  from  Malines. 

Despite  the  prohibition  received  yesterday,  H.  E.  the 
Cardinal  wishes  his  letter  read. 

^  GOUVERNEMENT  GENERAL   De   BeLGIQUE 

Section  Oa  No  3796 

Bruxelles,  le  7  Janvier,  1915. 
Aux  Ecclesiastiques  du  Diocese  de  Malines. 

Sur  mes  representations  au  suj  et  de  Taction  irritante  et  troublante 
de  sa  lettre  pastorale  parmi  la  population,  le  Cardinal  Mercier, 
a  Malines,  m'a  declare  par  ecrit  et  verbalement  qu'il  n'avait  eu 
aucunement  I'intention  de  provoquer  une  telle  action  et  qu'il  ne 
s'attendait  pas  a  tels  ciFets.  II  s'etait  precisement  attache  surtout 
a  convaincre  la  population  de  la  necessite  de  I'obeissance  a  la  Puis- 
sance occupante,  mcme  chez  le  patriote  beige,  qui  se  sentirait  in- 
terieurement  en  opposition  avec  1' Administration  allemande.  Au 
cas  Ou  je  craindrais  des  efFets  irritants,  le  Cardinal  ne  persisterait 
pas  a  desirer,  de  la  part  de  son  Clerge,  et  selon  les  provisions  de  la 
conclusion  de  sa  lettre  pastorale,  la  lecture  publique  reiteree,  aux 
prochains  dimanches,  et  la  propagation  ulterieure  de  cette  lettre. 
Or,  cette  hypothese  se  realise. 

C'est  pourquoi  je  reitere  ma  defense  du  2  Janvier  de  cette  annee 
concernant  la  lecture  publique  et  la  propagation  de  la  lettre  pas- 
torale. Je  fais  remarquer  aux  Ecclesiastiques  qu'ils  se  mettraient 
des  lors  en  contradiction  avec  la  volonte  que  leur  Cardinal  a  ex- 
primee  vis-a-vis  de  moi,  s'ils  agissaient  a  I'encontre  de  ma  presente 
defense. 

Baron  von  Bissing, 

Generaloberst. 
Gouverneur  General  en  Belgique. 
.  430 


NEW  YEAR'S  DAY 

This  written  prohibition  is  clever  and  false. 

"Neither  verbally  nor  in  writing  have  I  withdrawn 
any,  and  I  do  not  now  withdraw  any,  of  my  former  in- 
structions, and  I  protest  against  the  violence  done  to 
the  liberty  of  my  pastoral  ministry." 

That  is  what  the  Cardinal  dictated  to  me. 

He  added:  "They  have  tried  everything  to  make  me 
sign  some  attenuations  to  my  letter ;  I  have  not  signed. 
Now  they  seek  to  separate  my  clergy  from  me  by  pre- 
venting them  from  reading  it. 

"I  have  done  my  duty;  my  clergy  must  know  whether 
they  are  going  to  do  theirs." 

I  beg  you  to  accept,  Monsieur  le  Cure,  the  homage 
of  my  respect. 

E.  EvRARD^  Doyen.^ 
Brussels,  9  January. 

^  Monsieur  le  Cure : 
Je  rentre  de  Malines. 

Malgre  I'eerit  de  defense  re9u  hier  soir,  S.  E.  le  Cardinal  veut 
qu'on  fasse  la  lecture  de  sa  lettre. 

Cet  ecrit  de  defense  est  habile  et  faux. 

"Ni  verbalement  ni  par  ecrit,  je  n'ai  rien  retire  et  je  ne  retire 
rien  de  mes  instructions  anterieures,  et  j  c  proteste  centre  la  violence 
qui  est  faite  a  la  liberte  de  mon  ministere  pastoral." 

Voila  ce  que  le  Cardinal  m'a  dicte. 

II  a  ajoute:  "on  a  tout  fait  pour  me  faire  signer  des  attenuations 
a  ma  lettre;  je  n'ai  pas  signe.  Maintenant  on  cherche  a  separer 
mon  clerge  de  moi  en  I'empechant  de  lire. 

"J'ai  fait  mon  devoir;  mon  clerge  doit  savoir  s'il  va  faire  le  sien." 
Agreez,  Monsieur  le  Cure,  I'hommage  de  mes  respects. 

(S)     E.   EvRAKDs,  Doyen. 
Bruxelles,  le  9  Janvier. 

^81 


BELGIUM 

The  curSs  thereupon  read  the  letter  again  the  fol- 
lowing Sunday  and  it  was  not  long  before  the  world  was 
reading  it.  It  intensified  and  stiffened  that  moral  re- 
sistance which  on  the  part  of  the  Belgians  has  never 
weakened  or  slackened. 


LXI 

ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  GENERAL  GOVERNMENT 

The  incident  might  have  ended  otherwise  if,  as  I  have 
said,  the  counsel  of  Baron  von  der  Lancken  had  not  pre- 
vailed over  the  violent  insistence  of  the  military  clique. 
It  was  not  the  first  of  its  kind,  nor  was  it  the  last,  but  it 
was  one  of  the  most  serious  of  the  many  divergences 
of  opinion  between  the  military  and  the  civil  branches 
of  the  government  of  occupation  that  was  then  getting 
itself  installed.  There  was  a  vast  change  from  those 
first  days  when  General  von  Jarotsky  and  his  staff  were 
occupying  the  Hotel  de  Ville.  As  I  have  said.  General 
von  Liittwitz,  when  he  came,  had  removed  his  head- 
quarters to  the  Ministry  for  Foreign  Affairs,  eight  Rue 
de  la  Loi,  and  there  the  Governor  of  Brussels  continued 
to  reside,  while  next  door,  in  the  Ministry  of  the  Interior, 
there  was  set  up  that  institution  which  is  the  heart  of  the 
German  system,  the  thing  whose  name  came  to  have  a 
sinister  connotation  every  time  it  was  pronounced — the 
Kommandantur.  It  is  a  large  local,  two  great  buildings, 
one  the  luxurious  hotel  of  the  Minister  of  the  Interior — 
the  Belgian  Ministers  live,  or  used  to  live,  in  their 
Ministries — and  the  other  devoted  to  the  numerous  of- 
fices. There  was  the  headquarters  of  the  Chief  of  Police, 
in  many  respects  the  most  powerful  man  in  Brussels,  for 
he  seemed  to  be  accountable  to  nobody,  and  to  move  in  a 
wide  and  tragic  orbit  of  irresponsibility  that  allowed 
him  enormous  latitude  in  the  exercise  of  his  terrible 
powers.     Every  morning  there  set  forth  from  those 

433 


BELGIUM 

big  doors  a  battalion  of  poUzei,  German  soldiers  in 
grey,  ill-fitting  uniforms,  their  trousers  stuffed  in  their 
short,  heavy,  iron-shod  boots,  squat  helmets  on  their 
heads,  their  rifles,  with  bayonets  fixed,  slung  to  their 
shoulders.  They  were  distinguished  from  the  others 
only  by  the  black,  white  and  red  brassards,  with  the  seal 
of  the  Imperial  eagle  stamped  on  them,  and  by  the 
metal  plaques,  strung  by  chains  about  their  necks,  bear- 
ing in  large  letters  the  word  "polizei."  This  gave  them, 
in  our  unaccustomed  eyes  at  any  rate,  a  ridiculous  ap- 
pearance and  the  Brussels  folk  a  new  subject  for  their 
incorrigible  mockery;  they  instantly  suggested  the 
little  labels  hung  about  the  necks  of  bottles  of  Cura9ao, 
and  other  liqueurs. 

If  these  had  left  any  doubt  as  to  their  authority  and 
function,  their  brutish  look  would  have  sufficiently  de- 
clared it.  They  went  in  twos,  sometimes  in  threes; 
they  were  stationed  at  various  carrefours  and  at 
all  the  entrances  to  the  city;  they  tramped  heavily  up 
and  down  the  streets,  returning  to  the  Rue  de  la  Loi  late 
in  the  afternoon  dragging  the  latest  of  their  luckless 
victims,  who  disappeared  in  the  Kommandantur,  not  al- 
ways to  come  out  again  until  it  was  time  to  go  in  the 
black  wagon  to  the  prison  at  St.  Gilles,  or  to  the  field  of 
execution  at  the  National  Rifle  Range. 

There  was  always  a  long  queue  there  before  the  Kom- 
mandantur stretching  from  the  entrance  at  No.  4  Rue 
de  la  Loi  down  to  the  corner,  and  ofttimes  around  the 
corner  into  the  Rue  Royale,  with  polizei  to  keep  it 
straight.  Sad  faces,  for  the  most  part,  those  in  that  line, 
and  the  drab  habiliments  of  the  poor,  since  it  is  always 
in  any  calamity  the  poor  who  pay  flrst.  There  was 
something  degrading  and  shameful  in  the  spectacle,  as 

434 


THE  GENERAL  GOVERNMENT 

there  is  in  any  reckless  and  irresponsible  use  of  mere 
brute  force.  Those  people  were  there  on  all  sorts  of 
errands ;  many  in  compliance  with  the  harassing  regula- 
tions of  the  German  system,  to  secure  cartes  d'identite^ 
or  passes,  or  maybe  to  ask  to  see  some  relative  or  friend 
confined  there ;  the  line  was  always  there,  in  rain  or  frost 
or  sun,  huddled  along  the  wall,  moving  slowly  on,  step  by 
step,  through  the  long  weary  hours. 

There  was  another  entrance  to  the  Kommandantur, 
back  in  the  Rue  de  Louvain,  another  wide  portal  quite 
as  tragic  and  perhaps  more  hopeless.  Often  one  would 
see  prisoners  taken  in  there,  men  or  women,  to  be 
charged  with  one  of  the  countless  crimes  that  irresponsi- 
ble autocracy  invents  to  allege  against  those  who  even 
in  the  lightest  ways  run  counter  to  its  whim.  Often,  in 
walking  down  the  Rue  de  Louvain — one  had  to  go  that 
way  to  get  to  the  lower  town,  unless  one  went  around 
the  other  end  of  the  park,  for  the  park  and  the  Rue  de  la 
Loi  were  forbidden  the  public — I  have  seen  four  or  five 
polizei  leading  some  woman  with  tear-stained,  tragic 
eyes,  and  the  slatternly  skirt  and  sabots  she  had  on  when 
they  suddenly  descended  upon  her,  and  rubbed  my  eyes 
and  wondered  if  it  were  not  the  twelfth  instead  of  the 
twentieth  century. 

The  door  at  the  Rue  de  Louvain  was  the  more  sinister 
and  more  tragic  portal,  in  my  eyes  at  least,  because  I 
understood  that  the  more  important  prisoners  were  taken 
in  that  way ;  I  do  not  know,  and  it  makes  little  difference. 
Not  far  away,  behind  the  Banque  Nationale,  a  whole 
block  of  buildings  in  the  Rue  Berlaimont  had  been  taken 
over  by  the  secret  police.  And  in  and  out  of  these  doors 
there  streamed  every  day  the  army  of  spies,  secret-police, 
informers  and  agents  provocateurs  who  infested  Brus- 

435 


BELGIUM 

sels  and  in  plying  their  detestable  calling  resorted  to 
every  mean  device  that  the  depraved  and  abandoned 
could  imagine.  Among  them  were  Germans  who  had 
been  merchants  in  Belgium  before  the  war;  others  who 
had  been  received  socially  in  Brussels  and  in  Antwerp. 
A  German  police  commissioner  was  there  to  instruct 
them  in  all  the  refinements  of  their  atrocious  trade.  One 
with  any  faith  left  in  humanity  could  not  believe  that  so 
many  loathsome  scoundrels  could  be  assembled  in  the 
earth;  there  were  said  to  be  more  than  six  thousand  of 
them,  and  they  prowled  in  every  alley  and  in  every  by- 
way, in  ever}^  avenue  and  boulevard  in  the  town;  they 
made  perquisitions  everywhere;  a  suspicion,  a  hint,  an 
anonymous  letter,  sufficed  to  send  them  to  a  private 
home,  where  they  ransacked  and  rummaged  every  draw- 
er and  cupboard,  searched  the  inmates,  browbeat  and  in- 
timidated them.  They  rode  in  trams,  wriggled  their  way 
into  little  groups  and  gatherings,  insinuated  themselves 
into  bedroom  and  closet,  made  friends  and  confidants  in 
order  to  betray  them,  held  out  bribes  and  temptations; 
where  there  were  no  offenses,  they  invented  them ;  when 
there  was  no  disorder,  they  created  it,  and  then  lured  or 
dragged  the  poor  victims  of  their  treachery  and  du- 
plicity to  their  headquarters,  where  they  interrogated, 
badgered,  sweated  them,  and  by  ruses  or  violence,  ex- 
torted avowals  before  turning  them  over  to  courts- 
martial  and  the  firing  squad  or  sending  them  to  rot  in 
German  prisons  or  to  die  in  German  camps.  They  were 
of  both  sexes,  of  all  nations  and  of  all  tongues,  the  scum 
and  off  scouring  of  the  earth,  the  moral  filth  and  refuse 
of  the  world. 

They  were  everywhere.    There  was  a  questionable  fel- 
low who  was  the  tenant  of  a  building  of  three  stories  in 

436 


THE  GENERAL  GOVERNMENT 

the  Rue  de  Treves  across  from  the  Legation.  On  sum- 
mer evenings  I  noticed  that  in  an  upper  room  the  win- 
dows, which  commanded  a  view  of  the  Legation,  were 
always  open,  though  the  chamber  was  never  lighted. 
In  the  darkness  every  evening  I  would  see  a  coal, 
as  of  fire,  that  would  glow  bright  and  then  fade  into 
the  blackness  around,  then  glow  and  fade — a  cigar, 
evidently;  precisely  the  effect  William  Gillette  used 
to  produce  in  the  last  act  of  Sherlock  Holmes. 

Who  is  that  man  in  that  room  in  the  third  story? 
we  wondered,  and  one  morning  I  sent  a  servant  across 
the  street  to  inquire  of  the  proprietor,  in  shirtsleeves, 
taking  the  air  in  his  doorway. 

"He's  an  English  soldier,"  was  the  word  brought  back, 
"left  behind  at  Mons ;  he's  in  hiding." 

"He  is  not,"  I  replied,  "he  is  a  German  spy.  Tell  the 
man  much  good  it  will  do  his  tenant  to  waste  his  time 
there." 

The  proprietor,  at  this,  took  his  pipe  from  his  lips, 
gazed — and  went  in.  I  saw  the  evening  cigar  glow  and 
fade  no  more. 

One  always  had  the  uncanny  sensation  of  some  one  at 
one's  elbow.  There  were  furtive  shadows  when  one  was 
out  at  night;  some  one  always  near  the  doorway,  or 
the  door  of  the  motor.  Men,  meeting  in  the  boule- 
vard, always  turned  and  glanced  about  before  con- 
versing. And  in  the  trams  the  wise  were  silent,  for  gos- 
sip on  the  rear  platforms  was  the  most  dangerous  of 
indulgences.  Spies  or  secret  agents  were  constantly 
coming  to  the  Legation,  with  all  sorts  of  questions.  How 
could  one  send  letters?  How  could  one  communicate 
with  France  or  England?  The  favorite  device  was  to 
whisper:  "I  am  a  French  soldier,  and  I  should  like  to 

437 


BELGIUM 

be  sent  out,"  or  "I  am  a  Belgian  and  should  like  to 
join  the  army;  they  tell  me  that  you  know  the  way." 

We  knew  nothing  of  such  things,  of  course;  but  the 
Kommandantur  has  no  conception  of  the  fact  that  there 
is,  after  all,  such  a  thing  as  honour  in  this  world.  We 
had  one  response  which  in  many  instances  it  was  a 
pleasure  to  make : 

"Wait  until  you  can  speak  French  without  a  Ger- 
man accent,  and  then  come  back,"  we  would  say. 

There  were  several  who  came  as  newspaper  corre- 
spondents, and  not  without  credentials,  usually  con- 
ducted by  German  officers,  from  Berlin.  Two  of  them 
at  least  were  women. 

"What  is  your  opinion,  confidentially,  of  the  Ger- 
man administration  in  Belgium?  What  kind  of  man 
is  von  Bissing?"  they  would  ask. 

Their  poor  ruses  were  so  transparent!  How  much 
of  the  German  taxpayer's  money  has  been  expended  in 
the  purchase  of  scoundrels !    And  all  wasted ! 

There  were  dossiers^  of  course,  for  every  one  of  any 
importance  in  town;  an  official  Who's  Who  wherein 
with  meticulous  and  intimate  detail,  whole  lives  were 
laid  bare. 

Espionage  was  practised  not  only  on  their  enemies  but 
on  their  own  army.  I  was  told  that  each  general,  each 
high  official  was  watched,  and  that  for  this  purpose  men 
were  selected  whose  personal  resentment  could  be 
brought  into  play.  Thus  the  spies  selected  to  watch  the 
actions  of  generals  and  high  military  officials  were 
socialists,  who  could  gratify  their  personal  dislike  of  mili- 
tarism by  compromising  military  officials. 

"Do  you  see  that  man  over  there?"  said  a  German  one 

438 


THE  GENERAL  GOVERNMENT 

day  in  the  Palace  Hotel,  pointing  to  a  man  who  was 
sitting  before  the  door  of  the  lift.  **The  Government 
profits  by  his  political  hatred  of  a  certain  general  who 
is  now  in  his  room  upstairs.  Watch  awhile  and  you 
will  see  something." 

Half  an  hour  later  the  lift  descended,  a  general  came 
out,  the  man  got  up,  approached  and  bespoke  him;  the 
general  turned  deathly  pale;  they  two  went  away  to- 
gether. 

This  enormous  and  complicated  engine  of  oppression 
and  of  terror  was  incessantly,  tirelessly  hunting  down 
patriots,  seeking  out  evidence  for  prosecution  for  what 
the  Germans  by  a  peculiar  illogic,  impossible  in  any 
western  country,  call  treason  in  time  of  war.  Any  one,  if 
it  be  so  desired,  may  be  convicted  of  treason  against  Ger- 
many, no  matter  what  his  nationality  may  be,  simply  by 
charging  him  with  treason  in  time  of  war.  Hundreds 
of  graves  where  Belgians  lie  testify  to  the  fact.  When 
this  was  not  the  object  sought,  they  were  gathering  in- 
formation for  the  purpose  of  draining  the  resources  and 
ruining  the  industries  of  the  country.  The  Komman- 
dantur  and  the  secret  police  formed  a  section  of  the  cen- 
tral military  branch  of  the  government,  and  were  by 
far  its  most  powerful  arm. 

The  whole  organization  of  Das  General-Gouverne- 
ment  is  exceedingly  complicated,  based  on  a  conception 
difficult  for  any  one  of  Anglo-Saxon  or  Latin  culture 
and  temperament  to  understand.  One  hears  much  ex- 
pansive admiration  of  the  German  genius  for  organiz- 
ing, but  it  comes  for  the  most  part  from  those  who 
have  never  had  actual  experience  of  German  organiza- 
tion. Perhaps  it  is  because  there  is  so  much  of  it;  be- 
cause it  is  so  Kolossal.    It  is  in  many  ways  efficient,  no 

439 


BELGIUM 

doubt ;  they  get  certain  things  done ;  but  then,  so  do  the 
French,  who  seem  to  have  so  little  organization,  and  are 
so  clever  in  improvisation.  But  the  vast,  elephantine 
deliberation  of  German  organization  would  drive  an 
^Imerican  captain  of  industry  mad  in  a  fortnight.  It  is 
heavy,  cumbersome ;  its  complicated  machinery  rumbles 
on  and  on  remorselessly,  and  once  set  in  motion,  there 
is  no  way  of  stopping  it,  of  turning  it  aside,  of  adapting 
it  to  sudden  exigencies.  It  is  blindly  impersonal,  inhu- 
man, taking  no  account  of  persons  or  of  the  personal 
equation.  Wherever  it  touches  human  beings,  it  consists 
of  a  multitude  of  regulations,  of  verhotens;  in- 
stead of  a  few  simple  guide  posts  to  point  the  way 
through  a  wilderness,  the  Germans  would  put  up  myriad 
sign-boards  telling  the  traveller  where  not  to  go ;  instead 
of  barking  a  few  trees  to  blaze  the  trail,  they  would  hack 
all  the  trees  in  the  forest  except  those  along  the  way 
they  wished  to  indicate.  That,  indeed,  is  what  they  did  in 
the  Pare  there  in  the  centre  of  Brussels,  which  they  took 
from  the  people  and  closed  in  for  their  own  officers. 
Standing  at  the  east  entrance  in  the  Rue  Ducale,  near 
the  Rue  Lambermont  one  morning,  I  counted  twenty-six 
sign-boards,  of  many  colours,  with  their  various  ver- 
hotens. Before  the  war  the  only  signs  that  I  recall  were 
those  reminding  the  public  that  certain  places  were  re- 
served for  the  children  to  play  in.  But  then  the  Belgians 
had  learned  liberty  in  their  communal  system,  and  had 
their  own  pride  in  their  own  park. 

In  the  German  system  there  is  no  room  for  liberty 
or  initiative,  or  imagination.  The  nation  is  organized 
like  a  penitentiary — with  the  lock-step.  And  the  dif- 
ference between  the  German  system  and  the  Belgian 
or  the  English,  or  the  French  or  the  American,  i;3  that 

440 


THE  GENERAL  GOVERNMENT 

which  is  expressed  so  clearly  in  the  famous  illustration 
of  Tolstoy — the  man  in  the  boat  who  steers  by  land- 
marks along  the  coast  and  the  man  who  steers  by  com- 
pass. The  one  hugs  the  shore,  the  other  goes  forth  and 
roves  the  seven  seas. 

Our  dealings,  fortunately,  were  all  with  the  civil 
government.  We  found  them  usually  much  like  the  of- 
ficials with  whom  one  would  have  dealings  anywhere; 
they  were  generally  polite,  affable,  oftentimes  anxious 
to  please.  They  were  rather  slow,  perhaps,  and,  very 
bureaucratic;  and  sometimes  letters,  referred  from  one 
department  to  another,  got  caught  in  the  cogs  of  the 
terrible  machine,  and  were  lost  for  weeks  or  forever. 
And  there  was  a  way,  which  no  doubt  had  its  con- 
venience, of  sending  one  from  pillar  to  post,  and  from 
Peter  to  Paul,  until  one  was  lost  in  a  hopeless  labyrinth. 
But  what  was  worst  of  all,  the  machine  stopped  clank- 
ing sometimes ;  and  the  explanation  given  with  a  shrug 
of  the  shoulders,  was  very  simple,  and  expressed  in  two 
words,  'les  miUtaires."  Whenever  les  militaires  spoke 
the  machine  stalled,  the  organization  was  instantly  para- 
lyzed. The  officials  in  the  civil  administration,  Zivilver- 
waltung,  were  in  mortal  terror  most  of  the  time  of  the 
militaires  and  for  them  the  militaires  had  a  supreme 
contempt.  We  seldom  saw  the  militaires;  they  were  al- 
ways behind  somewhere,  out  of  sight,  and  always  there, 
their  dark  shadows  over  everything  and  everybody.  The 
civils  wore  uniforms,  but  wore  them  clumsily,  and  the 
militaires  used  to  laugh  at  their  awkward  manner  of 
saluting. 

There  were  thousands  of  these  civilians;  they  de- 
scended on  Brussels  immediately  after  the  occupation, 
like  a  swarm  of  grasshoppers.     They  crowded  all  the 

441 


BELGIUM 

Ministries,  warming  all  the  chairs,  old  bureaucrats  and 
clerks,  ronds  de  cuir,  hairy  professors  and  specialists 
in  spectacles,  filling  innumerable  reams  of  paper  with 
their  strange  characters,  compiling  figures  and  statistics 
and  reports,  until  the  Ministries  were  not  large  enough 
to  contain  them  all,  and  they  had  to  seize  whole  buildings 
wherein  to  install  themselves  and  their  bewildering  dock- 
ets and  papers,  and  import  from  Germany  troops  of 
German  boy  scouts,  who  wore  hats  like  foresters,  to  run 
their  errands  for  them.  And  these  were  not  enough; 
they  imported  hundreds  of  women  and  girls,  and  took 
over  entire  hotels  to  house  them.  The  salaries  of  all 
these  functionaries  were  enormous — and  all  paid  out 
of  the  contributions  and  fines  wrung  from  the  Belgians. 
For  the  functionaires  of  the  police  des  moeurs  that  were 
imported  from  Germany  the  city  of  Brussels  alone  had 
to  pay  ninety  thousand  francs  a  month. 

The  supreme  authority  and  the  source  of  all  power 
and  privilege  was  the  Governor- General,  delegated  by 
the  Emperor  as  his  personal  representative,  and  re- 
sponsible to  him  alone.  He  wielded  all  political  au- 
thority (Staatsgewalt) ,  as  chief  of  the  government  of 
occupation.  The  extent  of  his  powers  depended  entirely 
and  exclusively  upon  the  Imperial  will.  The  Kaiser,  in 
his  role  of  war-lord,  had  an  absolute  right,  emanating 
from  military  force,  in  the  conquered  territories.  This 
power,  for  occupied  Belgium,  was  delegated  to  the 
Governor-General.  At  Berlin  neither  Reichstag, 
Bundesrath  or  Foreign  Ofiice  had  any  authority  over 
him;  his  decrees  required  no  countersign  or  attestation. 
His  will  was  supreme.  In  a  word  he  was  a  dictator.  As 
to  offenses  committed  against  the  German  State  and  the 
German  army — which  is  the  German  State — he  had  the 

442 


THE  GENERAL  GOVERNMENT 

power  of  life  and  death  and  yet,  if  there  were  no  legal 
restrictions  to  his  powers,  save  as  the  approbation  of 
the  Kaiser  was  necessary  to  them,  he  was  nevertheless 
subject  to  the  ambient  military  influence,  the  prejudices, 
the  opinions,  the  whims  of  the  military  caste.  The  aged 
von  der  Goltz,  who  was  there  so  short  a  time — the  gos- 
sips say  that  he  was  intended  for  the  post  of  Governor- 
General  of  France  when  the  Germans  reached  Paris, 
and  that  when  the  battle  of  the  Marne  dissolved  that 
dream  he  was  assigned  to  Brussels — was  not  so  ferocious 
a  man  as  the  world  has  painted  von  Bissing,  and  von 
Bissing  was  not  so  ferocious  as  he  is  generally  repre- 
sented. His  name  bears  the  odium  of  all  that  was  done 
in  Belgium,  and,  since  he  was  ultimately  responsible,  no 
formal  injustice  perhaps  is  thereby  done  him,  but  he 
was  not  always  in  favour  of  what  was  done,  and  much 
was  done,  even  by  him,  that  was  against  his  judgment. 
Like  all  executives  he  was  the  victim  of  his  environment, 
the  slave  of  the  system  that  had  produced  him.  Behind 
him  was  the  formidable  and  powerful  military  machine, 
from  whose  occult  influence  he  could  not  escape.  And, 
as  in  the  case  of  all  arbitrary  and  autocratic  rulers,  while 
untrammeled  by  laws  and  principles  and  tribunals,  he 
was  surrounded  by  cliques,  constantly  disputing  the  pos- 
session of  him,  and,  pulled  and  hauled,  swayed  this  way 
and  that  by  the  jealous  factions  in  his  staff,  he  revealed 
himself  now  just,  merciful  and  yielding,  now  unjust, 
cruel  and  inflexible.  There  was  always  in  his  staff*  that 
endless  dispute  that  goes  on  in  Germany  between  the 
military  and  the  civil  factions.  Old  soldier  even  though 
he  was,  I  often  thought  that  since  he  was  by  no  means 
a  stupid  or  unenlightened  man,  his  feelings  inclined 
toward  the  clique  of  civilians,  but  in  any  matter  which 

443 


BELGIUM 

the  military  clique  considered  vital,  they  always  had 
their  way,  as  in  Germany  they  seem  always  to  do. 

By  decrees  of  the  Governor-General  it  was  announced 
that  the  powers  appertaining  to  the  King  of  the  Belgians 
would  be  exercised  by  the  Military  Governor- General; 
that  the  powers  appertaining  to  the  Provincial  Gov- 
ernors in  Belgium  would  be  exercised  by  the  Mili- 
tary Governor  of  the  Provinces  and  that  the  roles  of 
Commissioners  of  Arrondissements  would  be  filled  by 
Kreischefs. 

The  central  military  organization.  Das  General 
Gouvernementj  was  under  the  exclusive  direction  of  the 
chief  of  the  General  Staff,  who  was  ex  officio^  the 
Military  Governor  of  Brussels,  and  the  chief  Quarter- 
master {Ober  Quartiermeister) .  This  was,  that,  to  us 
mysterious  power  behind  the  scenes,  referred  to  by  the 
civilians  as  ^'Messieurs  les  Militaires"  sometimes  in  mo- 
ments of  pique  or  bitterness  as  "les  militaires"  or  again, 
with  almost  superstitious  reverence,  as  though  ces  mes- 
sieurs were  some  immutable  principle,  as  "la  necessite 
militaire." 

This  department  was  supreme  in  all  military  matters, 
in  all  things  concerning  the  army  or  the  security  of  the 
state,  and  it  controlled  the  police.  It  was  divided  into 
numerous  sub-departments,  directed  by  officers  of  the 
General  Staff,  which  were  responsible  for  the  troops  of 
occupation,  the  lines  of  communication,  the  surveillance 
of  the  Dutch  frontier  and  all  that;  there  were  sub-de- 
partments that  controlled  the  foreigners,  took  measures 
against  spying,  directed  the  military  courts  and 
tribunals,  the  police,  issued  passports  and  permits  of 
all  kinds,  provided  the  defense  against  aviators,  and 
were  responsible  for  the  remount  depots,  carting,  wagon- 

444 


THE  GENERAL  GOVERNMENT 

age,  and  all  those  multiple  questions  of  arms,  equipment 
and  supplies  that  concern  a  vast  army. 

The  civil  administration  {Zivilverwaltung)  was  di- 
rected by  the  Herr  Dr.  von  Sandt,  the  Verwaltungschef. 
The  lesser  officials  in  the  departments  of  the  Belgian 
government,  save  those  of  Foreign  Affairs  and  War, 
continued  at  their  posts  even  after  the  German  invasion. 
The  Belgian  Ministers  themselves  had  gone,  of  course, 
with  the  King  to  Antwerp,  and  then  on  the  long  and 
painful  Odyssey  to  Ostende,  and  finally  to  Havre,  but 
for  the  most  part  their  subordinates  remained  in  Brus- 
sels. The  employees  of  the  Railways,  Posts  and  Tele- 
graphs refused  to  work  for  the  Germans  because  the  rail- 
roads were  used  to  serve  the  army,  and  they  were  re- 
placed by  German  functionaries.  But  the  Ministries  of 
Justice,  of  Arts  and  Sciences  and  of  Finance  continued 
to  function,  though  without  their  political  heads.  They 
did  so,  of  course,  under  the  German  eye,  and  occupied 
themselves  solely  with  internal  questions  and  affairs  of  a 
routine  character.  It  was  after  the  defeat  of  the  Marne, 
in  the  autumn  of  1914,  that,  in  conformity  with  the 
Hague  Conventions,  von  der  Goltz  formally  invited 
them  to  remain  at  their  posts,  requiring  of  them  only  a 
promise  to  do  nothing  contrary  to  the  German  admin- 
istration, and  giving  them  official  assurances  that  in  so 
doing  they  waived  no  rights  as  patriotic  citizens  of  Bel- 
gium, and  might  resign  at  any  time.  The  problem  was 
as  difficult  as  the  relation,  and  there  were  long  and  scru- 
pulous examinations  of  conscience,  but  since  it  was  in  the 
interest  of  the  nation  and  in  conformity  with  interna- 
tional usage  and  The  Hague  Conventions,  the  func- 
tionaries decided  to  remain,  and  the  formal  assurances 
were  signed  by  von  Sandt,  on  the  part  of  the  Governor- 

445 


BELGIUM 

General.  The  decision  was  wise  and  patriotic;  it  kept 
the  nation  alive  and  with  the  communal  or  municipal 
governments  still  in  operation  concerned  with  all  those 
local  problems  that  most  nearly  touch  the  citizen  in  his 
daily  life,  the  machinery  of  government  was  kept  in 
motion  by  its  own  people,  and  Belgium  was  enabled  to 
survive  the  catastrophe  that  would  otherwise  have  over- 
whelmed her. 

Those  departments  were  all  under  von  Sandt's  direc- 
tion, and  to  each  was  assigned  a  German  referendary 
through  whose  hands  all  the  official  documents  passed. 
The  Germans  allowed  the  Belgian  courts  to  continue, 
and  to  try  civil  and  criminal  cases  wherein  Belgians  were 
concerned,  but  the  moment  a  German  was  involved,  as 
the  experience  of  Batonnier  Theodor  was  later  to  show, 
they  interfered. 

In  addition  to  the  departments  in  the  Belgian  Gov- 
ernment, under  which  the  country  for  three-quarters  of 
a  century  had  been  so  contented,  so  prosperous  and  so 
happy,  the  Germans,  of  course,  created  many  new  De- 
partments, many  of  them  parallel  to  those  already  ex- 
isting, departments  for  supervising  accounts,  for  taxes, 
for  arts  and  sciences,  even  for  ecclesiastical  questions. 
And,  in  the  Department  of  Agriculture,  they  organized 
"Zentraler"  as  they  called  them,  in  order  "to  facilitate 
the  distribution  of  the  food  products."  They  had  a  Zen- 
trale  for  everything,  with  a  chief  and  numerous  employ- 
ees ;  one  for  potatoes,  for  instance,  Kartoffelzentrale;  for 
fruits,  Ohstzentrale;  for  barley,  Gerstenzentrale;  for 
coal,  Kohlenzentrale ;  for  butter  and  eggs,  for  milk,  and 
for  many  other  products.  As  soon  as  one  of  these  Zentra- 
len  got  itself  well  into  operation,  the  thing  it  was  central- 
izing promptly  disappeared  and  was  no  more  to  be  had 

446 


THE  GENERAL  GOVERNMENT 

for  love  or  money.  The  most  famous  of  the  Zentralen 
was  the  Kartoffehentrale.  It  directed  all  peasants  to 
declare  the  amount  of  potatoes  they  had  on  hand ;  it  for- 
bade them  to  transport  them  from  one  commune  to  an- 
other; it  fixed  a  maximum  price,  and  all  that,  the  in- 
stant result  of  which  was  that  all  the  peasants  hid  their 
potatoes,  buried  them,  and  even  sowed  their  fields  over 
them ;  and  though  potatoes  are  a  staple  article  of  diet  in 
Belgium,  as  popular  as  they  are  in  Ireland,  they  were 
thenceforth  no  longer  to  be  obtained. 

There  were  other  departments  similar  to  the  Zentra- 
leUj  all  with  appropriate  names,  and  each  supporting  a 
horde  of  officials.  There  was  a  Zuckerverteilungsstelle, 
which  caused  the  disappearance  of  sugar,  the  Brauer- 
kontrollstelle,  for  the  breweries,  and  there  was  the  Zen- 
tral'Einkaufsgesellschaftj  organized  for  the  purpose  of 
buying  agricultural  products  and  selling  them  to  the 
Comite  National.  In  the  Department  of  Industry  there 
iwas  organized  a  section  of  commerce  and  industry,  which 
considered  the  labour  question,  and  had  also  its  assem- 
bly of  Zentralen,  as,  for  instance,  of  raw  materials,  the 
Rohstoffverwaltungsstelle.  There  were  Zentralen  for 
oil,  gas,  electricity,  water,  in  fact  for  everything. 

Besides  these  two  sections,  and  independent  of  both, 
was  the  Political  Department  {Politische  Ahteilung). 
It  had  originally  been  a  sub-department  of  the  Zivilver- 
waltung,  but  after  certain  internal  diif erences  of  opinion 
it  freed  itself  from  this  Department  and  emerged  as  an 
independent  and  equal  entity.  It  was  a  civil  Depart- 
ment in  the  sense  that  it  was  not  military,  and  so  far  as 
that  could  be  in  a  situation  so  anomalous,  it  was  a  kind  of 
Foreign  Office,  having  relations  with  the  Department  of 
Foreign  Affairs  at  Berlin,  following  its  methods,  and 

447 


BELGIUM 

more  or  less  inspired  by  its  policies.  Its  chief,  the  Baron 
von  der  Lancken-Wackenitz,  was  one  of  the  most  trusted 
advisers  of  General  von  Bissing.  It  was  with  the 
PoUtische  Ahteilung  that  the  few  diplomats  in  Brus- 
sels had  their  relations.  The  juridical  position  of  the 
foreign  legations  was  never  defined!  The  legations,  of 
course,  never  abandoned  the  point  of  view  that  they  were 
accredited  to  the  Belgian  Government,  and  though  they 
were  recognized  by  the  Government  of  Occupation,  the 
status  of  their  chiefs  in  Brussels  remained  until  the  end 
that  of  "distinguished  personalities."  Baron  von  der 
Lancken  had  among  his  several  assistants  Count  von 
Moltke,  a  name  well  known  in  German  history,  a  tall 
young  man  whose  courtesy  and  reasonableness  made 
many  a  hard  task  less  difficult  for  us;  the  Baron  von 
Falkenhausen,  a  young  cavalry  officer  who  had  been  ed- 
ucated at  Cambridge,  and  was  likewise  polite  and  oblig- 
ing. There  was,  too,  the  Count  Harrach,  of  a  promi- 
nent German  family  who,  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war, 
had  doffed  his  sculptor's  blouse  in  his  Florentine  villa  to 
don  the  uniforn.  of  a  German  hussar.  Count  von  Har- 
rach was  an  amateur  of  the  plastic  arts  who  had  lived 
long  in  Italy  and  spoke  as  many  languages  as  von  der 
Lancken,  and  his  wide  knowledge  of  the  world  made 
intercourse  with  him  easy.  We  did  not  see  him  so  often 
as  we  saw  the  others  because  his  duties  made  him  the 
head  of  another  central,  that  of  the  press  {Presszen- 
trale) .  This  central  had  the  same  effect  on  the  product 
it  sought  to  centralize  as  did  the  others  on  their  respective 
products,  so  that  news,  like  potatoes,  disappeared. 
There  was,  too,  Herr  Conrad,  a  secretary,  who  was  al- 
ways and  unfailingly  kind,  and  Dr.  Lorenz,  a  young 
student  of  philosophy  who,  I  always  felt,  would  have 

448 


THE  GENERAL  GOVERNMENT 

preferred  the  quiet  of  his  study  to  the  clamour  of  the 
war. 

The  Politische  Ahteilung  had  also  an  economic  de- 
partment which  examined  questions  concerning  impor- 
tations and  exportations,  and  it  had,  eventually,  a  section 
that  sustained  relations  with  the  Comite  National  and 
the  Commission  for  Relief  in  Belgium,  known  as  Ver- 
mittltmgsstelle. 

I  think  I  have  referred  to  Dr.  von  Lumm,  who  was 
at  the  head  of  the  Bank  Abteilung,  which  studied  and 
regulated  all  financial  questions,  the  relations,  always 
strained  and  difficult,  with  the  Banque  Nationale  and 
la  Societe  Generale,  the  sequestrations  of  property,  the 
moratorium,  requisitions,  savings  banks,  the  Bourse,  and 
by  no  mean  the  least  of  its  functions,  the  enormous  con- 
tribution of  war  imposed  on  Belgium,  and  on  the  cities 
and  towns. 

This  general  government  in  its  two  principal  Depart- 
ments extended  down  into  all  the  nine  provinces  of  Bel- 
gium, and  then  into  the  arrondissements.  In  each  prov- 
ince there  was  a  Military  Governor,  with  the  rank  of 
General,  and  a  president  of  the  Zivilverwaltung ,  who  re- 
placed the  Belgian  Governor.  The  government  of  the 
provinces  and  of  the  arrondissements  was  thus  carried 
on,  though  the  small  legislative  bodies,  or  provincial 
delegations,  were  assembled  only  when,  as  under  his 
decree  of  December  8,  1914,  General  von  Bissing  con- 
voked them  in  order  to  devise  ways  and  means  of  raising 
the  heavy  war  contributions  he  had  just  then  levied. 
This  decree,  and  the  others  like  it  that  followed  in  each 
year  said,  bluntly:  "The  sole  object  of  the  deliberation, 
with  which  they  will  occupy  themselves  exclusively,  is 

449 


BELGIUM 

the  means  of  paying  the  war  levy."  {"U  oh  jet  imique 
de  la  deliberation  dont  on  s'occupera  eccclusivement,  c'est 
le  mode  visant  Vaccomplissement  de  Virnpot  de  guerre f*) 

In  each  arrondissement  there  was  a  Kreischef,  with 
the  rank  of  Colonel.  Then  there  was  a  Zivilkommissar 
who  replaced  the  commissaire  d' arrondissement,  pro- 
vided for  by  the  Belgian  law,  and  had  his  relations  with 
the  authorities  of  the  communes. 

The  communal  authorities,  as  I  have  shown,  contin- 
ued at  their  posts  when  they  were  not  arrested  or  sent 
to  Germany,  enduring  constant  annoyance  and  igno- 
miny from  Kreischef  and  Zivilkommissar.  The  local  po- 
lice, however,  was  always  subject  to  the  military  author- 
ity, and  in  any  city  or  town  where  there  was  a  German 
garrison,  there  was  a  German  commandant  and  a  Kom- 
mandantur. 

The  territory  of  the  Government  of  Occupation  ( Oc- 
cupationsgehiet)  comprised  the  provinces  of  Limburg, 
Liege,  Luxembourg,  Namur,  Hainaut,  Brabant  and 
Antwerp,  and  it  was  to  this  district  that  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  Governor-General  was  limited.  Beyond,  to- 
ward the  sea,  in  the  provinces  of  East  and  West  Flan- 
ders, was  the  Etappengebiet,  or  military  zone,  exclu- 
sively under  the  militaires,  and  now  and  then  as  the  line 
wavered,  or  as  military  exigencies  demanded,  parts  of 
the  Occupationsgehiet  were  sliced  off  and  placed  in  the 
Etape  as  it  was  usually  called.  In  the  Etape  there  was 
no  government  save  the  arbitrary  rule  of  the  Komman- 
dantur.  Beyond,  lay  the  Operations^ ehiet,  the  invaded 
portions  of  the  north  of  France. 

In  Brussels  they  used  to  say  that  the  Occupations- 
gehiet was  paradise,  the  Etappengehiet  purgatory,  and 
the  Operationsgehiet  hell. 

450 


LXII 

THE     JUDICIARY 

"C*est  ignohle!''  said  de  Leval  as  we  walked  down  the 
Boulevard  de  Waterloo  one  winter  afternoon.  We  were 
looking  at  the  Palais  de  Justice,  that  immense  Grseco- 
Roman  pile,  the  conception  of  the  Belgian  architect 
Poelaert,  dominating  the  whole  city  there  on  its  hill. 
It  heaved  its  enormous  bulk,  impressive  in  its  mere  mass, 
into  the  low  wintry  sky  and  against  the  sharp  contrasts 
of  the  frosty  white  and  the  weather-blackened  blocks 
of  its  stone  the  German  flag  set  its  black,  white,  and  red 
at  the  pediment  of  the  vast  portico.  All  around  the  ter- 
rasse  and  the  ramp  sand  bags  were  piled,  and  at  the  four 
corners — grim  pendants  of  the  statues  of  Justice,  Law, 
Force  and  Royal  Clemence  which  upheld  the  lofty  dome 
— great  cannon  thrust  their  ugly  mouths  out  over  the 
city.  All  about  were  soldiers ;  hundreds  were  quartered 
there,  even  in  the  Chamber  of  the  Court  of  Cassation, 
which  smelled  to  heaven  of  their  moral,  and  stank  of 
their  physical  presence;  and  when  the  judges  of  the 
supreme  court  of  the  nation  entered  the  building  they 
must  reach  their  chambers  and  the  advocates  the  court- 
rooms by  the  back  stairs,  where  the  janitors  clattered 
with  their  brooms  and  mops;  the  grand  stairway  and 
the  lifts  were  reserved  for  the  use  of  Germans. 

But  though  they  had  transformed  the  Palais  de  Jus- 
tice into  barracks,  the  Germans,  as  enjoined  by  The 
Hague  Conventions,  for  a  while  respected,  at  least  in 
principle,  the  civil  and  criminal  jurisdiction  of  the  Bel- 

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BELGIUM 

gian  courts.  Civil  causes  between  Belgians  were  tried 
before  Belgian  judges  and  Belgian  juries;  Belgians 
violating  Belgian  laws  were  tried  before  Belgian 
judges,  who  applied  the  Belgian  laws  in  the  name  of 
King  Albert.  In  theory  foreigners  violating  Belgian 
laws  were  to  be  tried  by  Belgian  courts  in  time  of  peace, 
but  in  practice  if  any  German  violated  a  Belgian  law, 
or  if  one  were  sued  in  a  Belgian  court,  the  German  au- 
thority was  sure  to  intervene  in  his  favour.  Crime — 
on  the  part  of  Belgian  criminals  at  least — diminished 
during  the  first  months  of  the  war,  partly  because  the 
criminal  classes,  as  though  by  some  tacit  understanding, 
and  perhaps  touched  by  some  latent  sense  of  patriotism, 
were  less  active,  and  partly  because  the  police  did  not 
take  so  many  cases  into  court. 

"We  shut  our  eyes  to  little  things,"  said  an  old  com- 
missaire  de  police  to  me  one  day.  "Many  minor  offenses 
for  which  we  used  to  arrest  persons  before  the  war 
we  allow  to  go  unnoticed ;  we  seem  to  get  along  about  as 
well." 

The  number  of  civil  causes  was  greatly  reduced;  in 
the  presence  of  the  monstrous  strife  in  the  world  men 
seem  to  have  grown  less  litigious.  Many  of  the  lawyers 
were  away  in  the  army  or  in  exile,  and  the  absence  of 
an  attorney  or  of  a  party  was  agreed  to  be  a  ground 
of  postponement;  the  lawyers  themselves  added  a  new 
section  to  their  code  of  etiquette  and  refused  to  take 
the  places  of  their  colleagues  who  were  away.  The  atti- 
tude of  the  Belgian  bar,  indeed,  was  worthy  of  the  best 
traditions  of  the  profession;  its  members  refused,  all 
of  them,  to  accept  retainers  or  fees  for  appearing  in  the 
defense  of  their  countrymen  before  the  German  military 
courts,  and  to  the  common  enemy  they  opposed  a  resist- 

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ance  as  heroic  as  that  which  their  fellow-patriots  in  arms 
opposed  at  Liege,  or  at  Dixmude,  or  along  the  Yser. 
In  an  hour  of  the  utmost  gravity  for  humanity  the  Bar 
of  Belgium,  as  the  Bar  generally  in  enlightened  and  lib- 
eral lands  has  always  done,  stood  boldly  forth  as  the 
champion  of  the  liberties  of  mankind. 

Their  spirit,  like  their  ideal,  was  bodied  forth  in  the 
person  of  their  acknowledged  leader,  Maitre  Leon  Theo- 
dor,  Batonnier  de  I'Ordre  des  Avocats.  The  Bar  in  Bel- 
gium is  more  closely  organized  than  it  is  with  us. 
L'Ordre  des  Avocats  is  something  more  official  than  our 
Bar  Associations ;  it  is  in  fact  a  corporation,  dating  from 
olden  times — a  kind  of  guild,  exclusive,  proud,  and  jeal- 
ous of  its  privileges  and  prerogatives.  It  disciplines  its 
own  members,  lays  down  the  rules  for  their  conduct  and 
officially  prescribes  the  ethics  of  the  profession  and  the 
rules  for  admission  to  the  Bar;  its  Batonnier,  elected 
every  year,  is  the  titular  head  of  the  profession.  When 
the  rights  of  barristers  freely  to  defend  their  clients  was 
questioned  maitre  Theodor  did  not  yield,  even  though 
threatened  by  military  force ;  when  the  body  of  the  legal 
profession  was  treated  by  the  German  power  with  the 
contempt  that  brute  force  instinctively  feels  for  reason, 
he  rejoined  with  a  proud  and  firm  defiance;  when  the 
verge  of  the  court  was  trodden  by  soldiers  he  protested 
as  against  a  sacrilege;  and  when  the  Germans  changed 
the  laws  of  Belgium  so  as  to  load  the  dice  in  their  own 
favour  he  protested  again,  and  before  the  courts  of  the 
land  made  a  brilliant  plea  in  an  effort  to  induce  the  tri- 
bunals to  declare  the  decree  illegal  and  of  no  force  in  Bel- 
gian law.  It  was  a  superb  and  spirited  resistance  that 
this  slender,  alert  and  nervous  man  of  distinguished  pres- 

453 


BELGIUM 

ence,  with  white  hair  and  closely  trimmed  beard  and 
flashing  eyes,  opposed  to  the  German  military  force. 

The  first  of  the  occasions  that  provoked  the  interfer- 
ence of  the  Batonnier  came  in  December,  1914.  A  Ger- 
man firm  had  been  sued  in  the  Belgian  courts,  and  no 
Belgian  lawyer  having  been  found  who  was  willing  to 
represent  it,  the  Batonnier,  in  accordance  with  the  cus- 
tom under  the  Belgian — which  is  the  civil  law,  desig- 
nated a  Belgian  lawyer,  Maitre  Rahlenbeck,  to  appear 
and  undertake  the  defense.  The  cause  was  heard  by 
the  judges  and  judgment  rendered  against  the  German 
firm,  which  thereupon  appealed,  not  to  the  higher  courts, 
but  to  the  German  authorities,  and  the  Zivilverwal- 
tungschef.  Dr.  von  Sandt,  wrote  to  Batonnier  Theodor 
complaining  that  the  lawyer  assigned  to  represent  the 
German  firm  had  not  done  his  duty.  Maitre  Theodor 
instantly  replied,  resenting  the  imputation  against  the 
honour  of  the  Bar,  and  his  letter  ^  was  not  only  a  clear 

^  Ordre  Des  Avocats 

A  LA 

CouR  d'Appel  de  Bruxelles 
Cabinet  du  Batonnier. 

Bruxelles,  le  4  deeembre,  1914. 
Excellence, 

Apres  avoir  re9U  votre  communication  du  25  novembre  dernier^ 
relativement  a  I'afFaire  de  la  firme:  "Temmerman  &  Cie  de  Dus- 
seldorff,"  j'ai  prie  M®  Rahlenbeck  de  me  fournir  des  explications. 

M®  Rahlenbeck  me  repond  par  la  lettre  ci-jointe. 

Vous  y  verrez  avec  quel  soin  minutieux  IVP  Rahlenbeck  s'explique; 
combien  consciencieusement,  aussi,  il  s'est  occupe  des  interets  qui  lui 
furent  confies. 

M^  Rahlenbeck  est,  au  surplus,  un  confrere  des  plus  distingues, 
aussi  soigneux  que  soucieux  des  devoirs  de  sa  profession.  Je  ne 
puis,  quant  a  inoi,  que  constater  que  la  plainte  de  M.  Temmerman 

454 


THE  JUDICIARY 

expose  of  the  duties,  the  responsibilities  and  the  priv- 
ileges of  advocates,  but  of  the  place  and  dignity  of  that 
great  profession  which  in  every  crisis  of  the  world's  his- 
tory has  provided  the  most  distinguished  champions  of 
political  liberty. 

n'est  pas  fondee  et  qu'aucun  reproche  professionnel  ne  peut  etre 
retenu  a  charge  de  son  avocat.  , 

Dans  la  meme  communication,  je  lis:  "II  m'a  ete  dit  qu'il  existait 
parmi  les  Avocats  de  Bruxelles,  de  la  repugnance  a  representer  des 
Allemands  devant  les  Tribunaux.  Si  cela  devait  etre  vrai,  alors  le 
gouvernement  Imperial  se  verrait  dans  la  necessite  de  soigner  par 
d'autres  mesures  pour  la  representation,  devant  les  Tribunaux,  des 
interets  allemands." 

Cette  affirmation  et  cette  menace  appellent  de  ma  part  une  re- 
ponse  qui,  je  I'espere,  evitera  a  I'avenir  toute  espece  de  malen- 
tendus  entre  nous. 

Je  n'ai  pas,  comme  Batonnier,  a  me  preoccuper  de  I'etat  d'ame 
de  mes  Confreres  et,  tout  particulierement,  pour  ce  qui  concerne 
en  ce  moment  leurs  relations  avec  les  Allemands.  Leur  consci- 
ence leur  appartient,  avec  ses  secrets,  ses  sympathies  ou  ses  anti- 
pathie's,  sans  qu'il  soit  donne  a  personne,  homme  ou  pouvoir,  d'y 
penetrer. 

Mais,  ce  que  je  puis  affirmer,  c'est  que  I'avocat,  digne  de  ce  nom, 
qui  a  accepte  de  defendre  les  interets  d'un  sujet  allemand  en  jus- 
tice, soit  qu'il  le  fasse  spontanement,  soit  qu'il  en  ait  ete  charge 
d'office  par  le  Batonnier  de  I'Ordre,  se  fera  un  devoir  et  un  honneur 
de  ne  rien  omettre  et  de  tout  faire  pour  le  triomphe  de  sa  cause. 

L'avocat,  dans  la  pratique  de  ses  devoirs,  ne  connait  ni  les  de- 
faillances,  ni  les  rancunes;  pour  lui,  il  n'y  a  ni  ami,  ni  ennemi; 
son  souci  de  probite  professionnelle  n'est  pas  livre  aux  hasards  des 
evenements.  La  guerre  elle-meme,  dans  laquelle  nous  sommes  en- 
gages, ne  saurait  entamer  son  esprit  de  loyaute  et  d'elementaire 
justice. 

Sans  doute,  depuis  qu'elle  nous  a  envahis,  I'Allemagne  est  de- 
venue  notre  ennemie.     Menaces  par  elle  dans  notre  existence,  nous 

455 


BELGIUM 

la  combattons  avec  toute  I'aprete  d'un  patriotisme  enracine.  A  elle 
nous  ne  devons  rien.  En  revanche  I'Allemand,  sujet  de  droit, 
justiciable  de  nos  tribunaux,  est  sacre  a  nos  yeux.  Qu'il  comparaisse 
devant  nos  jurisdictions,  civiles  ou  repressives,  il  pent  etre  rassure: 
il  ne  connaitra  ni  deni  de  justice,  ni  parti-pris,  ni  malveillance, 
ni  vexations.  Que  si  sa  liberte,  son  honneur  ou  ses  interets  etaient 
injustement  menaces,  le  Barreau  serait  la  pour  le  proteger. 

Quant  a  la  menace  qui  nous  est  faite,  de  "prendre  des  mesures" 
— mesures  dont  je  ne  devine  ni  la  nature  ni  la  portee — elle  est  super- 
flue.  Elle  ne  saurait  modifier  en  rien  notre  attitude.  Nous  agirons 
a  I'avenir  comme  nous  I'avons  fait  dans  le  passe,  sans  preoccu- 
pation d'aucune  espece  et  sans  autre  mobile  que  celui  de  bien 
faire. 

Ce  sera  I'eternel  honneur  du  Barreau  Beige,  et  sa  raison  d'etre, 
de  n'obeir  dans  I'exercice  de  sa  haute  mission  qu'a  sa  conscience; 
de  parler  et  d'agir  sans  haine  et  sans  crainte;  de  demeurer,  quoi 
qu'il  puisse  advenir,  sans  peur  et  sans  reproche.  Qu'il  me  soit 
permis  d'aj  outer  que  le  Barreau  n'est  pas  un  corps  administratif. 
II  constitue  un  organisme  autonome  et  libre.  Place  par  la  loi 
aux  cotes  de  la  magistrature  pour  realiser  avec  elle  I'oeuvre  com- 
mune de  la  justice,  protege  par  des  traditions  seculaires,  il  ne  con- 
nait  ni  la  tutelle  ni  le  controle  d'aucun  pouvoir  politique.  II  regie 
sa  vie  et  son  activite  comme  il  I'entend;  il  ne  re9oit  d'ordre  ni  d'in- 
jonction  de  personne. 

Cette  liberte  sans  entraves  il  I'exerce,  non  pas  par  I'interet  de  ses 
membres,  mais  dans  I'interet  de  sa  mission.  Elle  a  developpe,  dans 
son  sein,  plus  de  discipline  que  d'orgueil;  elle  a  cree  un  code  de 
regies  sevres  d'honneur  et  delicatesse  qu'une  elite  seule  pent  sup- 
porter. 

Toucher  a  cette  institution  serait  toucher  a  la  justice  elle-meme, 
c'est-a-dire  a  ce  qui  constitue  le  supreme  rempart  de  notre  vie 
nationale. 

Place  a  la  tete  du  Barreau  de  la  capitale  beige  par  la  confiance 
de  mes  confreres,  je  manquerais  a  mes  premiers  devoirs  si  je  ne 
revendiquais  pas,  les  voyant  menacees,  nos  prerogatives  contre  un 
pouvoir  etranger  avec  la  meme  respectueuse  liberte  que  je  le  ferais 
si  je  me  trouvais  en  face  d'un  ministre  beige. 

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THE  JUDICIARY 

Je  prie  Votre  Excellence  d'agreer  I'assurance  de  ma  haute  con- 
sideration. 

Le  Batonnier  de   I'Ordre, 

Leon  Theodor. 

A  Son  Excellence  Monsieur  von  Sandt, 
Gouverneur  Civil  Allemand  en  Belgique. 

(Translation:) 

Ordrb  Des  Avocats 

A  LA  CouR  d'Appel  de  Bruxelles. 

Cabinet  du  Batonnier  Brussels,  December  4,  1914. 

Excellency, 

After  having  received  your  communication  of  the  25  November 
last  relating  to  the  case  of  the  firm  of  Temmerman  and  Company, 
of  Dusseldorf,  I  requested  Maitre  Rahlenbeck  to  furnish  me  with 
a  statement  of  the  facts  of  the  case. 

Maitre  Rahlenbeck  replied  to  me  by  the  enclosed  letter. 

You  will  see  from  it  with  what  infinite  care  Maitre  Rahlenbeck 
explains  his  conduct,  and  how  conscientiously  he  cared  for  the 
interests  that  were  confided  to  him.  Maitre  Rahlenbeck  is,  be- 
sides, one  of  the  most  distinguished  of  my  colleagues,  as  careful  as 
he  is  conscientious  in  the  duties  of  his  profession. 

As  for  me,  I  can  only  state  that  the  complaint  of  M.  Temmerman 
has  no  foundation,  and  that  there  can  be  not  the  slightest  ground 
for  any  professional  reproach  against  his  attorney. 

In  the  same  letter  I  read:  "I  have  been  told  that  there  existed 
among  the  lawyers  of  Brussels  a  certain  repugnance  to  representing 
Germans  before  the  courts.  If  this  should  be  true,  then  the  Im- 
perial government  would  find  itself  compelled  to  take  other  meas- 
ures for  the  representation  of  German  interests  before  the  courts." 

This  statement  and  this  threat  call  on  me  foqra  reply  which,  I 
hope,  will  avoid  in  the  future  every  sort  of  misunderstanding  be- 
tween us. 

It  is  not  for  me,  as  Batonnier,  to  concern  myself  with  the  state 
of  mind  of  my  colleagues,  especially  so  far  as  their  relations  with 
the  Germans   are  concerned.     Their   conscience  belongs  to   them, 

457 


BELGIUM 

with  its  secrets,  its  sympathies  or  its  antipathies,  without  the  right 
on  the  part  of  any  one,  man  or  power,  to  penetrate  it. 

But  what  I  can  affirm  is  that  the  lawyer,  worthy  of  the  name,  who 
has  agreed  to  defend  the  interests  of  a  German  subject  before  the 
law,  whether  he  do  so  spontaneously  or  whether  he  be  entrusted  with 
that  duty  by  the  Batonnier  of  the  Order,  will  consider  it  a  duty 
and  an  honour  to  omit  nothing,  and  to  do  everything  for  the  tri- 
umph of  his  cause. 

In  the  exercise  of  his  duties  the  lawyer  is  influenced  neither  by 
frailties  nor  by  malice;  for  him  there  is  neither  friend  nor  enemy. 
His  regard  for  his  professional  probity  is  not  given  over  to  the 
hazard  of  circumstances.  The  very  war  itself  in  which  we  are 
engaged  could  not  impair  his  spirit  of  loyalty  and  of  elementary 
j  ustice. 

Undoubtedly  since  she  has  invaded  our  soil  Germany  has  become 
our  enemy.  Threatened  by  her  in  our  national  existence,  we  combat 
her  with  all  the  bitterness  of  a  deeply  rooted  patriotism.  To  her 
we  owe  nothing.  On  the  other  hand,  the  German,  subject  to  the 
laws,  amenable  to  our  courts,  is  sacred  in  our  eyes.  Should  he 
appear  before  our  courts,  civil  or  criminal,  let  him  be  reassured: 
he  will  know  neither  denial  of  justice,  nor  partiality,  nor  ill-will, 
nor  vexations.  That  if  his  liberty,  his  honour  or  his  interests  were 
unjustly  threatened  the  bar  would  be  there  to  protect  him. 

As  for  the  threat  which  is  made  against  us — "to  take  measures" 
— measures  of  which  I  can  imagine  neither  the  nature  nor  the  ex- 
tent— it  is  superfluous.  It  could  not  modify  our  attitude  in  the 
least.  We  shall  act  in  the  future  as  we  have  done  in  the  past,  with 
no  sort  of  preoccupation  and  no  other  motive  than  that  of  doing 
right. 

It  will  be  the  eternal  honour  of  the  Belgian  bar,  and  its  reason 
for  existing,  to  obey,  in  the  exercise  of  its  high  mission,  only  its 
conscience,  to  speak ,  and  to  act  without  hatred  and  without  fear, 
to  remain,  whate^^r  befall,  without  fear  and  without  reproach. 

May  it  be  permitted  to  me  to  add  that  the  bar  is  not  an  adminis- 
trative body.  It  is  an  autonomous  and  a  free  organization.  Placed 
by  law  at  the  side  of  the  Magistracy  to  accomplish  with  it  the  joint 
task  of  justice,  protected  by  its  secular  traditions,  it  knows  neither 
the  guardianship  nor  the  control  of  any  political  power.     It  regu- 

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THE  JUDICIARY 

lates  its  life  and  its  activity  as  it  wishes,  it  receives  orders  or  in- 
junctions from  no  one. 

It  exercises  this  liberty  without  restraint,  not  in  the  interest  of 
its  members,  but  in  the  interest  of  its  mission.  It  has  developed  in 
its  heart  more  discipline  than  pride;  it  has  created  a  code  of  severe 
rules  of  honour  and  of  conduct  which  only  the  chosen  can  endure. 

To  touch  this  institution  would  be  to  touch  justice  herself,  that  is 
to  say,  that  which  constitutes  the  supreme  bulwark  of  our  national 
life. 

Placed  at  the  head  of  the  bar  of  the  Belgian  capital  by  the  con- 
fidence of  my  colleagues,  I  should  be  lacking  in  the  first  of  my 
duties  if  I  did  not,  seeing  them  threatened,  uphold  our  prerogatives 
against  a  foreign  power  with  the  same  respectful  liberty  that  I 
should  employ  were  I  to  find  myself  before  a  Belgian  Minister. 

I  beg  Your  Excellency  to  accept  the  assurance  of  my  high  con- 
sideration. 

Le  Batonnier  de  I'Ordre, 

Leon  Theodor. 

A  Son  Excellence  Monsieur  von  Sandt, 
Chef  de  I'Administration  civile  pres  du 
Gouverneur  General  en  Belgique. 

Ordre  Des  Avocats 

A  LA  CouR  d'Appel  de  Bruxelles. 

Bnixelles,  le  12  Janvier,  1915. 
Excellence  et  Honore  Confrere, 

A  la  suite  de  ma  lettre  du  4  decembre  dernier,  addressee  a  Mon- 
sieur le  Gouverneur  Civil  Allemand,  celui-ci  a  repondu  ce  qui  suit: 

"L'Administration  civile  a  le  droit  et  le  devoir  de  proteger  le 
public  allemand  demandant  justice. 

"Si,  dans  ma  lettre  du  25  novembre  dernier,  j'ai  manifesto  cette 
maniere  de  voir,  il  n'est  pas  possible  d'y  voir  raisonnablement  une 
menace  pour  le  Barreau  de  Bruxelles.  Ceci  repondra  d'une  fa9on 
definitive  a  vos  considerations  concernant  I'independance  du  Bar- 
reau." 

D'autre  part.  Monsieur  le  Gouverneur  Civil  a  commimique  a  M® 
Rahlenbeck  une  lettre   de  M.   Temmerman,  par  laquelle  ce   der- 

459 


BELGIUM 

nier  declare  retirer  sa  plainte   et  exprime   ses   regrets  de  I'avoir 
deposee. 

L'incident  peut  done  etre  considere  comma  termine  et  tout  dan- 
ger d'intervention  de  I'autorite  civile  allemande,  dans  I'organisation 
du  Barreau,  comme  definitivement  ecartee. 

Je  vous  remercie  encore  de  I'accueil  si  encourageant  que  vous 
avez  bien  voulu  me  faire  et  des  sentiments  de  haute  confraternite 
prof essionnelle  que  vous  avez  bien  voulu  m'exprimer.  Je  les .  re- 
porte  sur  le  Barreau  de  Bruxelles  dont  je  suis  heureux  et  fier 
d'avoir  ete,  en  ces  moments  graves,  le  representant  aupres  de  vous. 

Je  prie  Votre  Excellence  d'agreer  I'assurance  de  ma  haute  con- 
sideration. Le  Batonnier  de  I'Ordre, 

L.  Theodor. 

A  Son  Excellence 

Monsieur  le  Ministre  des  Etats-Unis  d'Amerique 
a  Bruxelles. 

(Translation:) 

Ordre  Des  Avocats 

A  LA  CouR  d'Appel  de  Bruxelles. 

Brussels,   January    12,    IplS. 
Bureau  du  Batonnier 
Excellency,  and  Honoured  Colleague, 

In  reply  to  my  letter  of  the  4  December  last,  addressed  to  the 
German  Civil  Governor,  he  has  replied  to  me  as  follows: 

"The  civil  administration  has  the  right  and  the  duty  to  protect 
the  German  public  seeking  justice. 

"If,  in  my  letter  of  the  25  November  last,  I  indicated  this  point 
of  view,  it  is  impossible  reasonably  to  perceive  therein  a  threat 
against  the  bar  of  Brussels.  This  replies  definitively  to  your  re- 
marks concerning  the  independence  of  the  bar." 

Furthermore,  the  Civil  Governor  has  transmitted  to  Maitre  Rahl- 
enbeck  a  letter  from  M.  Temmerman,  by  which  the  latter  with- 
draws his  complaint  and  expresses  his  regret  at  having  commenced 
action. 

The  incident  can  therefore  be  considered  at  an  end,  and  all  dan- 
ger of  intervention  by  the  German  civil  authority  in  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  bar  as  definitively  averted. 

460 


,  THE  JUDICIARY 

Dr.  von  Sandt  replied  briefly,  disclaiming  any  inten- 
tion to  threaten  the  independence  of  the  bar,  and  in 
addition  he  wrote  another  letter  addressed  to  Maitre 
Rahlenbeck,  forwarding  to  him  a  letter  from  M.  Tem- 
merman,  in  which  the  latter  withdrew  his  complaint  and 
expressed  his  regret  at  having  made  it.  The  incident 
was  considered  closed,  though  it  had  its  effect  on  the 
incidents  that  followed.^ 

Whilst  recognizing  the  Belgian  courts,  however,  the 
Government  of  Occupation  reserved  to  itself  the  power 
of  what  it  called,  it  would  seem  with  accurate  nomencla- 

I  thank  you  again  for  the  encouraging  reception  that  you  were 
good  enough  to  extend  to  me,  and  for  the  sentiments  of  intimate 
fellowship  in  the  profession  which  it  has  pleased  you  to  express. 
I  accept  them  on  behalf  of  the  bar  of  Brussels,  of  which  I  am  happy 
and  proud,  in  these  grave  moments,  to  have  been  the  representative 
near  you. 

I  beg  Your  Excellency  to  accept  the  assurance  of  my  high  con- 
sideration. 

Le  Batonnier  de  I'Ordre, 

L.    THioDOR. 

A  Son  Excellence 
Monsieur  le  Ministre  des  Etats  Unis  d'Amerique  a  Bruxelles. 

^  Si,  dans  ma  lettre  du  25  novembre  dernier,  j'ai  manifesto  cette 
maniere  de  voir,  il  n'est  pas  possible  d'y  voir  raisonnablement  une 
menace  pour  le  Barreau  de  Bruxelles.  Ceci  repondra  d'une  fagon 
definitive  a  vos  considerations  concernant  I'independance  du  Bar- 
reau. 

(Translation:) 
To  His  Excellency  the  Minister  for  the  United  States  of  America 

at  Brussels. 

If,  in  my  letter  of  the  25  November  last,  I  indicated  this  point 
of  view,  it  is  impossible  reasonably  to  perceive  therein  a  threat 
against  the  bar  of  Brussels.  This  replies  definitively  to  your  re- 
marks concerning  the  independence  of  the  bar. 

461 


BELGIUM 

ture,  "extraordinary  justice,"  and  created  military  tri- 
bunals with  seats  in  the  principal  cities  to  administer  it. 
The  theory  on  which  these  courts  were  erected  was  that 
they  were  to  judge  only  offenses  against  the  security 
of  the  German  state  and  the  German  army.  These 
courts  judged  without  appeal  and,  of  course,  without 
juries,  and  rendered  judgments  and  imposed  penalties 
at  their  will — whether  fines,  deportations,  imprisonment 
at  hard  labour,  or  death. 

Military  courts  had  sat  in  Belgium,  indeed,  almost  im- 
mediately after  the  occupation,  but  it  was  not  until  the 
fifth  of  February,  1915,  that  von  Bissing,  in  a  decree  de- 
fining the  powers  of  Chefs  d'Arrondissements,  inserted 
an  article — Number  9 — stating  that  he  reserved  to  him- 
self the  unlimited  right  to  issue  such  decrees,  ordinances 
and  orders,  and  to  take  such  repressive  or  disciplinary 
measures  as  he  chose.  Under  this  article,  on  the  twelfth 
of  June,  1915,  the  Governor- General  pretended  to  chalk 
out  the  jurisdiction  of  the  German  military  tribunals. 
They  were  recognized  as  competent,  in  conformity  with 
the  Penal  Code  of  the  German  Empire,  to  exercise  crim- 
inal jurisdiction  in  cases  of  "treason  in  time  of  war" 
(trahison  en  temps  de  guerre),  for  all  cases  punishable 
by  the  law  of  the  German  Empire  directed  against  Ger- 
man troops  or  soldiers,  for  all  infringements  of  decrees 
of  military  authorities,  (including  orders  emanating 
from  the  local  Kommandant) ,  and  for  all  infringements 
of  edicts  issued  by  the  Governor  General,  by  Provincial 
Governors,  by  Governors  of  fortified  places,  by  the  Gov- 
ernor of  Brussels,  and  by  the  Kommandants  of  Mau- 
beuge  and  the  Camp  of  Beverloo.  In  cases  of  violations 
of  decrees  issued  afterwards  the  authorities  were  to  be 
entirely  free  in  the  choice  of  penalties  to  be  applied. 

462 


THE  JUDICIARY 

Thus  were  erected  those  terrible  tribunals  that  set  at 
nought  every  principle  of  right  and  justice  and  liberty 
that  had  been  won  for  mankind  by  the  struggle  during 
those  long  centuries  through  which  Latin  and  Anglo- 
Saxon  civilization  with  such  toil  had  been  reared.  They 
were  exceptional  tribunals  indeed,  organised  to  render 
"extraordinary  justice"  and  to  apply  the  German  laws 
of  war.  In  theory  they  were  to  try  persons  who  had 
committed  crimes  against  the  German  state  or  the  Ger- 
man army,  but  under  the  almost  unlimited  powers  given 
them  by  the  decrees  that  had  created  them  they  assumed 
jurisdiction  of,  and  presumed  to  try  and  to  punish  a 
thousand  offenses  that  were  not  envisaged  either  by 
criminal  law  or  even  by  the  German  military  Penal  Code 
itself.  They  tried  men  for  assaulting  German  secret 
agents  in  civilian  garb,  for  harbouring  wounded  soldiers 
of  the  Allies,  for  preaching  patriotic  sermons,  for  ped- 
dling prohibited  newspapers,  for  trying  to  cross  the  fron- 
tier into  Holland,  for  aiding  or  permitting  and  even  for 
not  having  prevented  men  from  joining  the  Belgian 
army,  for  distributing  La  Libre  Belgique,  for  doing  the 
goose-step,  for  "looking  at  a  German  woman  insolently 
in  the  street,"  for  whistling  the  "Lion  of  Flanders,"  for 
refusing  to  work  for  the  Germans,  for  refusing  to  con- 
tinue the  publication  of  a  newspaper,  for  aiding  in  the 
work  of  le  mot  du  soldat  ( an  organization  that  undertook 
merely  to  obtain  and  transmit  to  their  families  news  as  to 
the  health  of  soldiers ) .  In  one  year  over  600,000  persons 
were  either  fined  by  these  tribunals  or  condemned  to 
prison,  to  deportation,  or  to  death.  The  most  terrible 
of  all  these  exceptional  tribunals,  perhaps,  was  the  one 
that  sat  at  Hasselt,  and  the  very  name  of  the  town 

4.63 


BELGIUM 

came  to  bear  in  Belgian  speech  a  sinister  and  fatal  con- 
notation. 

The  German  military  code  is  a  complex  mystery  that 
no  lawyer  of  the  western  world,  no  lawyer  of  Latin  or  of 
Anglo-Saxon  culture,  would  attempt  to  explain.  The 
military  authorities,  under  the  vast  powers  conferred  by 
the  Governor-General's  decree,  were  constantly  adding 
to  it  to  suit  their  convenience  or  their  whims.  When- 
ever Parliament  has  nothing  else  to  do,  said  an  Eng- 
lish wit,  it  makes  a  new  crime,  and  the  untrammeled 
autocratic  power  in  Belgium  made  new  crimes  daily, 
simply  by  posting  an  affiche  beginning  "II  est  defendu" 
announcing  thus  the  latest  thing  verboten.  There  was 
a  new  one  on  the  walls  of  Brussels  every  morning;  the 
long  and  tragic  and  sometimes  ridiculous  series  of  them 
was  unending.  It  was  verboten  to  display  the  Belgian 
flag;  verboten  to  take  photographs;  verboten  to  sell 
newspapers  not  expressly  approved  by  the  Military  Gov- 
ernor; verboten  to  approach  "in  a  suspicious  manner" 
any  railway,  telegraph,  or  telephone  line;  verboten  to 
make,  distribute,  placard  or  expose  any  pictures  not  ap- 
proved by  the  censor,  or  to  give  any  theatrical  repre- 
sentation, recitation,  concert  or  cinema  act  not  so  ap- 
proved; verboten  to  hold  open-air  meetings  or  any  as- 
sembly where  political  questions  were  discussed;  verbo- 
ten to  sell  game;  verboten — unless  one  were  a  German 
officer — to  hunt;  verboten  to  sing  or  to  play  "la  Braban- 
9onne"  or  "la  Marseillaise" ;  verboten  to  wear  or  to  show 
in  public  any  Belgian  insignia  or  that  of  any  other  coun- 
try at  war  with  Germany  or  her  Allies ;  verboten  to  use 
automobiles  or  bicycles  without  express  authorization; 
verboten  to  pass  the  frontier  or  to  go  from  one  town  to 
another  without  a  permit.    These  are  but  a  few  of  the 

464 


THE  JUDICIARY 

hundreds  of  prohibitions  decreed  by  the  military  author- 
ity and  visited,  after  a  summary  trial,  by  such  penalties 
as  the  whims  of  the  ruling  mind  of  the  court  might  de- 
cide. 

Trials  for  treason  were  frequent — trials  of  Belgians, 
that  is.  Just  how  a  Belgian  could  be  guilty  of  treason 
against  Germany  is  difficult  to  comprehend,  but  that 
was  what  the  Germans  called  it,  even  though  they  did 
qualify  it  in  the  phrase  trahison  de  guerre  in  the  affiches 
that  announced  the  judgment,  often  to  death,  of  those 
who  were  guilty  of  this  crime.  For  those  whose  legal 
conceptions  were  all  Anglo-Saxon  or  Latin  this  did  not 
throw  much  light  on  the  legal  mystery.  To  be  sure,  it 
might  make  little  difference  to  the  victim  whether  he 
was  shot  for  spying  or  for  treason,  or  for  "treason  in 
time  of  war";  but  to  the  student,  who  is  apt  to  judge 
the  cultural  development  of  a  people  by  its  code,  the 
distinctions  are  not  without  significance  and  value.  There 
was  also  the  practice  of  deporting  persons  as  "undesir- 
able"; this  was  done  by  the  secret  police,  without  pre- 
ferring charges,  without  trial,  without  judgment;  a 
man  might  be  going  home  at  evening,  and  at  his  door 
be  arrested;  he  might  leave  his  house  and  not  return, 
nor  be  seen  again — a  few  days  at  the  Kommandantur 
and  he  would  be  sent  to  Germany.  No  one  knew,  when 
the  door-bell  rang,  that  it  was  not  the  Polizei  come  to 
ransack  the  house  and  to  bear  off  some  of  its  inmates. 

The  trials  were  often  mere  comedies.  They  were  con- 
ducted in  a  room  in  the  Ministere  de  la  Marine,  and  in 
important  cases  in  the  Senate  chamber  before  a  court 
of  high  officers,  with  whom  at  times  the  Governor-Gen- 
eral himself  would  sit.  The  prosecutor  would  bring  in 
his  evidence,  sum  it  up,  and  ask  for  a  certain  penalty, 

465 


BELGIUM 

which  was  usually  accorded.  The  accused  in  many  cases 
were  allowed  no  counsel,  and  when  they  were,  the  attor- 
neys were  not  permitted  to  see  their  clients  before  the 
hearing  or  to  be  informed  of  the  charges  against  them. 
They  would  appear  in  court  and  do  what  they  could, 
which  was  not  much,  since  any  vigorous  defense  was 
apt  to  be  considered  as  wanting  in  respect  to  the  court 
or  to  the  German  uniform,  or  some  such  thing. 

The  trial  of  the  Count  and  Countess  de  Merode  was 
one  such  comedy.  The  Countess  was  charged  with  hav- 
ing carried  letters,  I  believe,  and  she  and  her  husband, 
after  their  palace  had  been  rummaged  by  the  agents  of 
the  Kommandantur,  had  been  confined  with  German 
sentinels  at  her  door  for  weeks.  The  name  de  Merode 
is  one  of  the  oldest  and  most  aristocratic  in  Belgium. 
Because  of  the  high  station  of  the  accused  the  Governor- 
General  himself  came  to  honour  with  his  presence  the 
pronouncement  of  the  judgment.  The  prosecutor  had 
badgered  and  browbeaten  all  the  witnesses,  but,  strange- 
ly enough  the  court  acquitted  the  de  Merode  unanimous- 
ly. But  on  this  General  von  Bissing  interfered,  and 
in  a  long  address  said  that  despite  the  unanimous  ac- 
quittal it  was  his  duty  to  condemn  the  accused.  The 
maximum  punishment  for  the  offense  with  which  they 
were  charged  was  death,  and  the  minimum  confinement 
in  a  fortress,  but  inasmuch  as  de  Merode  was  aii  old 
name  in  Belgium  and  inasmuch  as  von  Bissing  had  been 
presented  to  the  Queen  of  the  Belgians,  he  would  let 
him  off!  Having  fhus  in  the  space  of  a  few  minutes 
been  acquitted,  then  convicted,  then  pardoned  and  set 
free,  the  distinguished  prisoners  thought  the  farce  was 
ended ;  but  no,  to  make  the  vaudeville  complete  the  Gov- 

466 


THE  JUDICIARY 

ernor-General  announced  that  he  would  impose  a  fine  of 
three  hundred  francs! 

These  courts  did  not  always  convict;  now  and  then 
they  acquitted,  and  perhaps  at  times  they  did  do  sub- 
stantia^ justice:  the  reproach  to  be  made  against  them  is 
the  reproach  to  be  made  against  all  lynch  law — namely, 
that  it  is  founded  on  no  juridical  right  and  is  guided  by 
no  fixed  rules  or  principles.  No  theory  of  evidence,  for 
instance,  was  applied.  Suspicion  sufficed  for  arrest,  and 
accusation  for  proof,  hearsay  and  conclusions  were  ad- 
mitted, and  the  accused  forced  to  testify,  to  submit  to 
terrible  interrogatories,  in  prison  and  in  court.  Inform- 
ers were  encouraged  and  personal  revenge  thereby  easily 
gratified.  Any  one  w  ith  a  private  grudge  had  only  to  go 
or  to  send  an  anonymous  letter  to  the  Kommandantur ; 

there  he  would  be  avenged.     The  Countess  de  R 

refused  a  beggar  a  pittance  in  the  street  and  the  beggar 
denounced  her,  saying  that  she  had  referred  to  the  Ger- 
mans as  "pigs."  She  was  arrested,  taken  to  the  Kom- 
mandantur, released,  and  then  when  she  again  encoun- 
tered the  beggar  on  the  Boulevard  there  was  a  disagree- 
able scene.  The  beggar  was  accompanied  by  an  agent- 
provocateur;  the  agent  had  talked  with  a  German  who 
had  a  shop  near  by,  and  the  shopkeeper  just  then  ran 
out  and  cried : 

"You  call  me  a  spy,  do  you;  and  the  Germans  pigs?" 

"I  never  said  such  a  thing,"  protested  the  Countess; 
but  she  was  again  arrested. 

The  case  was  brought  to  the  Legation  and,  while  we 
could  do  nothing  for  her,  Maitre  de  Leval,  en  galant 
homme,  tried  to  aid  her.  He  thought  he  had  arranged 
it  all:  the  judge  had  decided  to  let  her  go;  von  Bissing 
had  been  gracious,  had  heard  her  statement,  told  her  she 

467 


BELGIUM 

could  go,  had  bowed  and  kissed  her  hand;  but  the  shop 
keeper  on  the  Boulevard  refused  to  withdraw  her  charge. 
The  affair  dragged  on  for  weeks,  the  poor  Countess 
half  sick  with  worry  and  fear ;  finally  she  was  tried,  only 
witnesses  against  her  being  heard,  and  she  was  fined  three 
hundred  francs ;  and  to  this  the  Governor- General  added 
one  hundred  marks,  so  that  her  fine  in  all  amounted  to 
four  hundred  and  twenty-five  francs. 

Down  in  Luxembourg  there  a  boy  was  arrested.  He 
was  tried  before  a  court-martial,  and  when  it  was  shown 
that  he  was  not  yet  sixteen  years  of  age  he  was  set  free 
because  of  his  infancy ;  but  a  year  later,  having  attained 
the  age  of  sixteen,  he  was  arrested,  condemned  and  im- 
prisoned for  the  original  offense. 

There  was  a  young  woman  who  kept  a  little  shop  in 

the  Rue  de who  was  sentenced  to  ten  days  in  the 

Kommandantur  for  selling  picture  post  cards,  which  the 
Germans  had  forbidden,  one  of  the  very  few  praise- 
worthy things  they  did  in  Belgium.  She  served  her  time, 
was  released,  and  then  two  days  later  was  rearrested  and 
sent  back  to  prison  to  serve  another  term  for  the  same 
offense. 

Another  dealer  in  such  things  was  summoned  to  the 
Kommandantur  and  told  that  he  must  not  sell  portraits 
of  King  Albert  in  the  uniform  of  a  Grenadier,  or  of 
the  Queen  in  the  costume  of  an  amhulanciere  of  the  Red 
Cross.  When  asked  "Why  not?"  the  Germans  said  that 
the  Queen  had  never  worn  such  a  costume  and  that  they 
could  not  permit  any  one  thus  to  misrepresent  the  facts. 

The  patronne  of  ''Le  Chien  Vert,"  a  restaurant  on  the 
Avenue  de  Tervueren,  had  as  customers  one  evening 
some  German  officers  who,  after  supping,  gave  her  a  five- 
mark  piece  in  payment. 

468 


THE  JUDICIARY 

'^C'est  Vimage  de  notre  Empereur  meme/*  said  one 
of  the  officers. 

^'Eh  hien,"  replied  the  patronne,  ''empereur  ou  pas 
empereur^  da  vout  six  francs  cinquante,  c'est  tout" — a 
bit  of  Brussels  repartee  that  cost  her  a  pretty  fine. 

Such  things  were  happening  every  day. 

Near  Liege  a  man  named  Braconnier  was  arrested 
and  kept  at  the  Kommandantur  for  twenty-four  hours. 
His  brother  went  to  ascertain  why  he  was  arrested,  and 
was  told  that  he  was  charged  with  having  violated  the 
laws  against  poaching.  He  was  of  a  prominent  name, 
with  a  preserve  of  his  own.     4 

"Mais  il  est  braconnier,'^  said  the  German  officer,  and 
orders  had  been  issued  that  all  hraconniers  ^  were  to  be 
severely  punished. 

It  was  not  long  after  Batonnier  Theodor's  first  en- 
counter with  the  German  authorities  that  he  felt  again 
called  upon  to  protest.  However  much  it  might  be  pre- 
tended that  the  incident  created  by  the  letter  to  Herr 
Dr.  von  Sandt  had  been  closed,  the  inevitable  conflict 
in  that  moment  began.  From  that  time  on,  Maitre 
Theodor  did  not  fear  or  fail,  whenever  the  principles  of 
liberty  were  violated  by  German  intolerance,  or  German 
tyranny,  to  protest  to  the  very  face  of  the  authorities. 
He  wrote  a  series  of  letters  to  the  occupying  Power  that 
are  classics  of  the  literature  of  the  law  and  of  liberty, 
setting  forth  in  clear  and  stately,  and  often  eloquent, 
words  not  only  the  imprescriptable  rights  of  courts  and 
of  advocates  who  plead  before  them,  but  of  peoples  who 
look  to  courts  as  the  guardians  of  free  institutions.  No 
lawyer  can  read  them  without  a  glow  of  pride  in  his  pro- 
fession and  a  nobler  conception  of  its  dignity  and  its  re- 

'  I.e.,  poachers. 

469 


BELGIUM 

sponsibility.  There  is  in  them  something  universal,  as 
there  is  in  all  great  truths,  and  they  apply  as  well  to  the 
Common  Law  as  to  the  Civil  Law, 

Maitre  Theodor  did  not  content  himself,  however, 
with  filing  protests;  he  opposed  an  active  resistance  to 
the  encroachments  of  the  invaders  who  were  trying  to 
subjugate  his  land,  and  it  was  his  great  service  to  his  na- 
tion that  he  discovered  and  pointed  out  the  first  of  those 
legal  encroachments  that  were  so  subtle  and  insidious, 
that  they  might  have  passed  unnoticed  among  the  tragic 
events  of  the  times.  For  his  resistance  he  entrenched 
himself  behind  a  principle  of  law,  and  in  four  great  pleas 
before  the  courts  of  Belgium  he  exposed  the  designs  of 
the  invaders,  pointed  out  the  consequences  that  would 
result  if  they  were  allowed  to  pass  unchallenged,  and 
warned  his  own  land  of  the  danger  of  acquiescing  in- 
advertently in  its  own  destruction.  In  so  doing,  to  use 
one  of  our  old  American  expressions,  he  blazed  a  trail 
for  others  to  follow — a  trail  that  was  found  plainly 
marked  when,  two  years  later,  the  magistracy  of  Bel- 
gium had  to  enter  upon  an  even  more  difficult  way. 


LXIII 

THE    BATONNIEE   THEODOR 

The  Governor- General  issued  a  decree  changing  the 
manner^  of  fixing  damages  sustained  by  individuals  in 
riots  and  tumults.  There  was  an  old  and  salutary  law  in 
Belgium  that  gave  to  those  who  in  such  circumstances 
had  been  injured  in  person  or  in  property  an  action 
against  the  commune  where  the  disorder  occurred,  and 
the  damages  were  fixed,  in  the  usual  way,  by  experts 
testifying  before  the  courts  of  Belgium.  But  the  Ger- 
mans ordained  another  method.  Instead  of  leaving  to 
the  jury  the  assessing  of  damages  they  were  to  be  fixed 
by  a  board  of  arbitration,  one  member  of  which  was  to 
be  appointed  by  the  Governor-General  in  Belgium,  an- 
other by  the  German- Governor  of  Brussels,  and  the 
third  by  the  municipality  involved.  The  object  was  at 
once  apparent;  there  were  Germans  in  Belgium  who  as- 
serted that  in  the  first  days  of  the  war  they  had  been  set 
upon  by  Belgian  crowds  and  injured,  and  now  they 
would  claim  vindictive  damages  under  a  method  that  was 
very  much  like  loading  the  dice.  Belgian  lawyers  were 
forbidden  to  appear  before  these  arbitration  boards.  The 
indignity  to  the  Belgian  bench  and  the  Belgian  Bar  was 
not  allowed  to  pass  unnoticed,  and  it  was  Maitre  Theo- 
dor  who  courageously  resented  it.  If  the  change, 
wrought  by  the  decree  of  the  Governor- General  of  the 
third  of  February,  1915,  was  noted  at  all  by  the  people, 
they  saw  in  it  only  another  evidence  either  of  the  naivete 
or  of  the  cynicism  of  the  invader.  A  week  later  another 

471 


BELGIUM 

decree — that  of  the  tenth  of  February,  1915 — created 
boards  of  arbitration  composed  of  justices  of  the  peace 
flanked  by  two  unsworn  assistants  as  "assessors,"  to  de- 
termine disputes  in  matter  of  rent  and  to  hear  and  de- 
termine what  we  would  call  in  our  law,  cases  of  forcible 
entry  and  detainer.  This  decree  excited  little,  if  any, 
comment;  it  was  very  long,  and  very  complicated;  I 
doubt,  indeed,  if  it — or  the  other,  for  that  matter — was 
ever  posted  on  the  walls.  Materially  and  practically  it 
was  perhaps  of  little  consequence.  But  Maitre  Theodor 
at  once  recognized  the  two  measures  as  ominous  prece- 
dents; he  saw  in  them  not  only  a  rather  clumsily  con- 
cealed device  for  despoiling  Belgian  communes,  not  only 
an  affront  for  the  profession  he  represented  and  de- 
fended with  an  ardent  feeling,  but  the  first  blows  in  an 
effort  to  undermine  the  independence  of  the  Belgian 
judiciary,  and  to  destroy  the  nation  itself.  Most  people, 
no  doubt,  in  and  out  of  Belgium,  saw  in  the  tragic  calam- 
ity that  overwhelmed  the  little  land  only  the  brutal  deeds 
of  the  German  army,  and  their  imaginations  were  struck 
only  by  the  physical  resistance  to  it  and  to  individual 
deeds  that  were  done  by  those  who  came  creeping  in  its 
wake.  Distinctions,  and  refinements  on  the  distinctions, 
to  be  made  in  the  relations  of  "occupying  Power"  and 
"occupied  territory"  meant  little  to  them;  Hague  Con- 
ventions to  the  most  were  what  they  seemed  to  be  to  the 
Germans,  when  they  referred  to  embarrassing  treaties  as 
scraps  of  paper.  They  did  not  know  that,  under  conven- 
tions signed  at  The  Hague  by  the  principalities  and  gov- 
ernments of  the  world,  the  powers  which  a  von  der  Goltz 
or  a  von  Bissing  might  exercise  in  Belgium  were  defined 
and  limited ;  that  the  laws  of  the  occupied  country  were 

472 


THE  BATONNIER  THEODOR 

still  in  force,  and  were  not  to  be  changed  except  in  case 
of  an  imperative  necessity  arising  out  of  the  exigencies 
of  war.  But  Maitre  Theodor  saw,  and  when  these  two 
decrees  were  issued,  he  tried  to  move  the  Courts  of  Bel- 
gium, as  the  one  representative  of  Belgian  sovereignty 
intact  in  the  nation,  to  oppose  a  resistance.  I  have  said 
that  there  was  nothing  to  strike  the  imagination,  nothing 
of  the  theatrical,  in  Maitre  Theodor's  defiance  of  the 
German  power,  nothing  that  could  be  used  in  the  cinema, 
but  there  was  a  fitting  stage  for  the  drama,  and  the  scene 
was  set,  judges  and  lawyers  in  black  silken  robes,  there 
in  the  Palais  de  Justice  on  the  hill  dominating  Brussels, 
while  German  sentinels  were  tramping  up  and  down  be- 
fore the  door  of  the  chamber  where  the  court  was  sitting, 
and  the  German  flag  was  flying  from  the  dome.  The 
arguments  in  which  Maitre  Theodor  showed  the  two  de- 
crees to  be  ultra  vires,  beyond  the  power  of  an  occupant, 
was  made  on  the  eighteenth  of  March,  1915,  before  a 
bench  of  thr^ judges  in  the  first  chamber  of  the  Tribu- 
nal of  First  Instance.  The  case  was  that  of  Piron  v.  de 
Ridder,  and  it  came  on  for  hearing  before  the  Justices 
Benoidt,  Leclercq  and  Oliviers,  Judge  Benoidt  presid- 
ing. M.  Holvoet,  the  Procureur  du  Roi,  was  there  to 
represent  I'ordre  public;  Maitre  Bihin  represented  the 
plaintiff  and  Maitre  de  Vadder  the  defendant.  The  ac- 
tion was  one  in  which  it  was  sought  to  recover  twelve 
hundred  francs  rent  for  a  house  in  the  Chaussee  de 
Wavre,  to  which  demand  the  defendant  demurred  to  the 
jurisdiction,  pleading  the  decree  of  the  Governor-Gen- 
eral of  the  tenth  of  February  and  claiming  the  right  to 
have  the  case  referred  to  the  tribunal  set  up  by  the  de- 
cree. In  the  space  behind  the  bench  there  were  seated 
nearly  all  the  judges  of  the  tribunals  of  First  Instance, 

473 


BELGIUM 

many  judges  of  the  Court  of  Appeal,  and  some  of  the 
Court  of  Cassation.  The  entire  chamber  was  filled  with 
lawyers  in  their  black  robes,  their  toques,  their  white 
rahats,  among  them  several  former  batonniers  of  the  Or- 
der. When  the  slender,  alert  Batonnier,  with  the  white 
hair  and  the  brilliant  eyes,  approached  the  bar  he  was  ac- 
companied by  Maitre  Bia,  the  Batonnier  of  Liege,  who, 
by  reason  of  his  years  and  services,  was  the  dean  of  the 
batonniers  of  all  Belgium.  With  Batonnier  Theodor 
there  appeared  also  the  Council  of  the  Order — an  im- 
posing representation  intended  to  show  the  patriotic 
solidarity  of  the  lawyers  of  Belgium. 

The  judges  and  the  lawyers,  in  the  consciousness  that 
they  were  present  at  a  scene  which  had  its  historical  in- 
terest, sat  in  that  silent  intensity  which  marks  such  mo- 
ments. The  case  at  bar  was,  in  its  immediate  effect,  of 
small  importance,  involving  as  it  did  a  mere  question 
of  the  occupancy  of  premises,  and  the  immediate  issues 
were  simple,  but  when  Maitre  Theodor  ^proached  the 
bar  and  began  his  argument  it  was  to  show  that  it  raised 
an  issue  in  which  the  destinies  of  the  nation  were  in- 
volved. 

"I  present  myself  at  the  bar,"  he  said,  "escorted  by 
the  Council  of  the  Order,  surrounded  by  the  sympathy 
and  the  confidence  of  all  my  confreres  of  Brussels,  and  I 
may  add,  of  all  the  Bar  in  the  country.  The  Bars  of 
Liege,  Ghent,  Antwerp,  JMons,  Louvain,  Charleroi, 
Namur,  have  sent  to  that  of  Brussels  the  expression  of 
their  professional  solidarity,  and  have  declared  their  ad- 
herence to  the  resolutions  taken  by  the  Council  of  the 
Order  of  the  capital. 

"The  question  raised  is  grave;  it  is  the  breaking  out, 
in  its  critical  stage,  of  the  conflict  which  has  existed  since 

474 


THE  BATONNIER  THEODOR 

the  beginning  of  the  occupation  between  the  occupying 
power  and  the  judicial  power  of  the  occupied  country. 
This  conflict  we  have  neither  created  nor  desired.  Lead- 
ers of  the  bench  and  of  the  Bar  have  done  all,  in  the 
measure  of  legal  possibility  and  within  the  limits  of  their 
dignity,  to  live  in  peace  with  the  occupying  Power.  The 
German  decrees  of  the  third  and  of  the  tenth  of  Febru- 
ary, 1915,  have  put  an  end  to  all  hope  of  a  definite  under- 
standing. They  are  no  longer  legislative  acts;  they  al- 
ready mark  certain  intentions  as  to  the  nature  of  which 
it  is  no  longer  possible  to  have  any  illusions.  They  are 
the  first  strokes  of  the  spade  that  would  sap  our  judicial 
institutions;  they  are  the  first  steps  toward  the  seizure 
by  the  occupying  Power  of  the  Belgian  judicial  power; 
they  touch  the  very  depths  of  our  rights  and  our  prerog- 
atives; they  have  wounded  us  to  the  heart.  To  keep 
silent,  and  to  let  this  be  done  would  be  abdication  on  our 
part  and  treason  to  our  country;  more,  it  would  be  to 
break  our  oath. 

"It  is  this  conflict  which  is  to  be  decided  before  you.  I 
shall  discuss  the  validity  of  the  decrees.  I  shall  do  it 
with  the  decorum  due  to  so  grave  a  question.  I  shall 
have  a  constant  regard  for  the  respect  I  owe  to  a  Power 
legally  established.  I  shall  be  careful,  above  all,  not  to 
lack  deference  toward  the  man  of  high  value  who  repre- 
sents the  German  civil  government  on  our  soil.  But  I 
shall  speak  freely.  My  words  will  be  the  echo  of  my 
conscience.  I  shall  not  shrink  from  the  expression  of 
any  of  my  convictions.  My  words  may  sometimes  seem 
harsh.  My  thoughts  will  never  be  offensive.  I  wish  His 
Excellency  Mr.  von  Sandt  to  know  from  me  all  about 
this  hearing.  He  has  the  right  to  the  truth.  I  shall 
cause  him  to  know  it.     Perhaps  he  will  judge,  after 

475 


BELGIUM 

having  read  me,  that  he  has  not  always  been  well  in- 
formed in  regard  to  us. 

"I  take  up  the  argument." 

I  shall  not  follow  Maitre  Theodor,  interesting  as  it 
would  be  to  do  so,  through  the  more  technical  portions 
of  his  long  and  closely  reasoned  legal  argument.  Its  in- 
terest is  professional,  legal.  His  contention  was  that  the 
decrees  were  judicially  inexistant;  that  the  source  of  the 
power  of  the  Government  of  occupation,  so  far  as  legis- 
lation was  concerned,  was  in  the  Convention  of  The 
Hague,  and  that  the  Convention,  far  from  conferring  the 
power  to  issue  the  decree  in  question,  formally  forbade 
it,  because  there  was  no  absolute  military  necessity  for 
innovation.  The  Convention  of  The  Hague  regulated 
the  rights  of  the  occupying  Power.  It  limited  them  in 
the  interest  of  the  occupied  country.  Article  43  of  the 
convention  says ; 

The  authority  of  the  legitimate  power  having  passed  de  facto 
into  the  hands  of  the  occupant,  the  latter  shall  take  all  the  meas- 
ures in  his  power  to  restore  and  to  ensure  as  far  as  possible  public 
order  and  safety,  while  respecting,  unless  absolutely  prevented,  the 
laws  in  force  in  the  country. 

He  traced  the  growth  and  progress,  in  international 
law,  of  that  theory  which  had  substituted,  in  modern 
times,  the  notion  of  occupation  for  that  of  the  ancient 
right  of  conquest.  Uncjer  the  empire  of  the  ancient  no- 
tion the  invaded  territory  fell  under  the  absolute 
sovereignty  of  the  invader ;  it  changed  masters.  Under 
the  empire  of  the  new  doctrine  of  military  occupation, 
the  political  regime  of  the  occupied  territory  subsists, 
it  is  not  annuled  or  modified ;  the  exercise  of  the  existing 
pohtical  power  only  is  suspended  and  passes  into  the 

476 


THE  BATONNIER  THEODOR 

hands  of  the  occupant.  It  was  this  new  conception,  this 
modern  doctrine  rising  slowly  into  being,  which  the  Con- 
vention of  The  Hague  finally  acknowledged,  ratified, 
and  consolidated  into  treaties  signed  by  all  the  Powers — 
Germany  among  them.  The  Batonnier's  argument  was 
exhaustive,  legally  and  historically,  and  his  contentions 
might  have  been  maintained  by  his  citations  from  Ger- 
man international  lawyers  alone.^ 

*  When  he  came  to  apply  these  principles  which  he  had  so  clearly 
brought  to  the  case  at  bar,  he  said : 

"By  this  decree  of  the  3rd  February,  the  occupying  power  has 
taken  out  of  the  jurisdiction  of  our  tribunals  all  cases  arising  under 
the  law  of  Vendemiaire,  relating  to  pillages  committed  against 
Germans  in  the  month  of  August,  1914.  It  is  an  act  of  defiance 
to  our  magistrature.  To  believe  a  Belgian  magistrate,  called 
upon  to  judge  a  German  soldier,  capable  of  acting  from  motives 
other  than  those  of  his  own  conscience  and  of  justice  is  to  believe 
him  unworthy  to  sit  at  all.  The  decree  of  the  Srd  February 
offers  him  this  affront." 

But  the  decree  had  also  forbidden  lawyers  to  appear  before  the 
courts  of  arbitration  it  created,  and  this  touched  the  corporation 
of  lawyers  on  a  sensitive  point. 

"The  decree  of  the  10th  February  is  inspired  by  the  same  hos- 
tile thought,  but  it  is  the  bar  which  it  attacks,"  he  said.  "They 
might  have  taken  radical  measures  against  it,  they  preferred  to 
mutilate,  in  trying  to  diminish  it.  Vain  effort!  You  do  not  di- 
minish an  institution  to  which  have  appertained  such  men  as  Paul 
Janson,  Bara,  Charles  Graux,  Charles  Duvivier,  Beernaert,  Demot, 
Jules  Le  Jeune,  Dupont  of  Liege,  Neujean,  to  recall  among  the 
dead  .only  those  of  whom  the  memory  is  so  near  to  us — Edmond 
Picard,  to  cite  only  him  among  the  living.  They  can  not  overturn 
that  which  is  the  work  of  time.  The  bar  has  come  up  as  a  neces- 
sity out  of  our  history  and  out  of  our  national  customs.  A  lawyer 
is  not  only  a  professional  competent  to  represent  the  interests  of 
parties  before  justice  and  to  defend  in  a  courteous  and  honourable 
struggle  the  interests  of  the  client:  he  is  a  necessary  auxiliary  of 

477 


BELGIUM 

The  Batonnier  closed  his  long  argument  by  a  mov- 
ing appeal.     "To  recognize  the  situation  that  is  pre- 

the  judge,  to  whom  he  brings  his  learning,  his  probity  and  his 
labour.  To  accomplish  his  task  he  sustains  a  long  and  costly  prepa- 
ration. For  three  years  he  must  practice  gratuitously  for  the  indi- 
gent. During  three  years  he  is  initiated  into  the  virtues  of  delicacy 
and  of  honour  that  will  render  him  worthy  to  wear  the  robe. 
The  bar  has  extended  into  the  political  field.  In  this  domain  also 
it  counts  its  illustrious  representatives.  It  carries  there  not  only 
its  aptitude,  but  its  love  of  independence  and  of  liberty.  It  keeps 
and  develops  in  its  breast  this  ideal  of  men  and  of  peoples.  When 
the  image  of  liberty  is  deformed  without  in  the  fierce  struggle  of 
politics  it  rectifies  it  and  restores  to  it  the  purity  of  its  eternally 
beaiitiful  features.  It  is  this  need  of  independence  and  of  liberty 
which  despite  itself  pushes  it  on  in  hours  of  danger,  which  makes 
it  speak  when  peoples,  bowed  under  the  iron  hand  of  a  master,  find 
themselves  dumb  and  discouraged.  It  is  this  which  helps  him  to 
draw  himself  up  in  his  pride  when  he  feels  the  menace  come  and  the 
storm  growl.  They  may  not  love  that  institution,  but  they  owe  it 
respect." 

"And  now  I  ask  you,"  said  Batonnier  Theodor,  "where  is  the  ab- 
solute necessity  for  an  innovation?  What  is  the  menaced  public 
interest  that  requires  this  modification  of  our  old  laws  as  to  the 
competence  and  organization  of  the  judiciary.''  Will  there  be  found 
one  Belgian  magistrate  to  believe  it?  Will  there  be  found  a  single 
one  to  decide  that  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  have  that  bizarre 
institution  composed  of  a  judge  and  two  chance  assessors  not  under 
oath,  but  with  a  deliberative  voice?  Will  there  be  found  one  to 
judge  it  indispensable  to  the  public  interest  that  the  right  of  de- 
fense be  suppressed  to  provoke  a  renewal  of  the  regime  of  brokers  ? 
Will  there  be  foimd  a  single  one  willing  to  associate  himself-  with 
the  combinations,  I  was  going  to  say  with  the  complicities,  to 
which  the  decree  of  the   10  February  owes  its  birth?" 

As  to  the  need  of  judges  to  pass  on  legal  questions,  and  to  decide 
disputes  Maitre  Theodor  said: 

"The  functions  that  he  exercises  are  delicate.  To  be  a  good 
judge  it  is  necessary  to  know  the  law,  not  only  a  part  of  the  law, 

478 


THE  BATONNIER  THEODOR 

sented  to  us  simply  because  it  is  imposed  upon  us,"  he 
said,  "would  be  to  accept  annexation  before  it  had  even 

all  the  law.  It  is  necessary  to  be  acquainted  with  the  interpreta- 
tions of  the  law  given  by  the  courts  and  tribunals.  It  is  necessary 
to  be  capable  to  interpret  a  convention.  It  is  necessary  to  know 
how  to  dose  equity  and  law  there  where  the  law  permits  the  judge 
to  depart  from  the  rigour  of  principles.  It  is  necessary  to  know 
how  to  untangle  the  facts  of  an  inquiry,  to  appreciate  the  value 
of  the  testimony,  to  penetrate  into  the  soul  of  a  pleader  or  of  a 
witness.  All  that  is  delicate,  difficult  and  sometimes  troubling  for 
the  conscience  of  him  who  is  called  upon  to  decide.  When  it  is  a 
question  of  an  assessor  nothing  of  the  sort  is  necessary.  The  most 
ignorant  of  men,  the  least  competent  to  judge,  perhaps  the  moment 
he  owns  a  piece  of  ground,  with  or  without  a  building  on  it,  or 
when  he  has  put  his  name  at  the  bottom  of  a  lease,  is  considered 
worthy  to  put  on  the  robes  of  a  judge.  Dignus  intrare.  Oh!  if 
only  Moliere  were  living!" 

The  issues  between  Maitre  Theodor  and  Governor  General  von 
Bissing,  was  that  the  laws  in  force  in  Belgium,  as  the  Germans 
indeed  had  recognized,  could  not,  under  The  Hague  Convention, 
be  changed  unless  there  was  some  absolute  obstacle  to  their  appli- 
cation, created  by  the  conditions  of  war,  and  he  contended  that  the 
occupying  Power  alone  was  not  the  sole  judge  of  the  necessity  of 
innovation. 

"Now  in  what  text,"  asked  Maitre  Theodor,  "in  what  possible 
judicial  interpretation  does  the  occupant  draw  this  unilateral  fac- 
ulty of  judging  of  the  case  of  necessity.''  By  what  title  does  the 
occupant  claim  this  preeminence?  The  Convention  of  The  Hague 
makes  no  difference  in  treatment  between  the  co-contractants. 
The  signature  of  His  Majesty  the  King  of  the  Belgians  is  the  equal 
of  that  of  His  Majesty  the  German  Emperor.  The  Convention 
makes  no  distinction  in  the  juridical  situation  between  the  occupy- 
ing Powers  and  the  occupied  country.  It  stipulates  no  subordina- 
tion on  the  part  of  one  to  the  other.  Both  have  an  equal  right  to 
arm  themselves  with  the  Convention,  to  invoke  it,  and  to  profit  by 
it.  The  tendency  which  consists  in  attributing  to  the  occupant 
the  predominant  situation  is  only  an  instinctive  return  to  the  ancient 

479 


BELGIUM 

been  declared.  We  are  not  annexed.  We  are  not  con- 
quered.    We  are  not  even  beaten.     Our  army  fights. 

conception  of  the  right  of  conquest  and  an  unmerited  and  super- 
annuated homage  to  the  predominance  of  force  over  law.  That 
is  my  first  plea. 

"Here  is  the  second:  To  give  to  the  occupying  Power  the  right 
to  interpret  the  Convention  as  it  understands  it  is  to  submit  in 
advance  the  occupied  country  to  the  good  pleasure  of  the  occupying 
Power.  It  is  to  concede  to  it  the  faculty  and  the  right  not  to  ob- 
serve it  or  to  violate  it.  It  is  to  make  even  the  existence  of  the 
Convention  depend  on  the  will  of  the  occupant.  Our  civil  law,  the 
expression  of  reason,  in  accord  with  that  of  all  legislations,  German 
law  included,  declares  that  such  a  condition  would  render  the  Con- 
vention null  and  void.     It  is  called  the  potestative  condition. 

"If  the  Convention  of  The  Hague  admitted  such  an  interpretation 
it  would  merit  only  a  shrug  of  the  shoulders.  It  would  be  no  more 
than  a  diplomatic  fiction,  an  illusion  and  a  sham  for  the  occupied 
country.  Such  was  not  the  intention  of  any  of  the  contracting 
Powers.  Neither  the  German  Emperor  nor  the  King  of  the  Bel- 
gians could  have  wished  by  his  signature  to  cover  a  sham  conven- 
tion. They  wished  that  Convention  to  be  a  living  reality.  If,  in 
spite  of  all,  the  occupying  Power  arrogates  to  itself  the  right  to 
interpret  and  to  apply  the  Convention  in  its  own  fashion,  and  con- 
sequently to  legislate  in  a  manner  contrary  to  the  conditions  laid 
down  by  the  Convention,  what  will  be  the  situation  for  the  occupied 
country  } 

"If  it  is  a  question  of  measures  to  be  applied  imilaterally  by  the 
occupant  the  occupied  country  will  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  bow 
before  it;  the  occupying  Power  being  the  stronger  is  then  the 
master.  But  if  for  the  application  of  measures  edicted  by  it  the 
occupying  Power  solicits  the  concourse  of  the  occupied  country 
it  will  belong  to  the  latter  to  determine  whether  the  Convention 
has  been  violated  or  not,  and  if  in  the  affirmative  to  refuse  it. 

"In  the  case  at  bar  the  occupying  Power  solicits  the  aid  of  the 
Belgian  judiciary  power  to  carry  into  effect  its  edict  of  the  10th 
February.  The  Belgian  judicial  power  will  examine  in  all  con- 
science the  question  as  to  whether  the  Convention  of  The  Hague 

480 


THE  BATONNIER  THEODOR 

Our  colours  float  beside  the  French  colours,  the  English 
colours,  the  Russian  colours.    The  nation  lives.    She  is 

has  been  observed,  that  is  to  say,  if  the  case  of  necessity  exists.  If 
it  is  convinced  to  the  contrary  not  only  it  may,  but  it  must  refuse 
to  apply  the  law  and  the  occupying  Power  has  no  legal  or  legiti- 
mate means  to  compel  it  to  do  so. 

"Has  the  Belgian  judiciary  power  really  this  right?  In  accord- 
ance with  Belgian  law  the  judiciary  power  is  one  of  the  three 
powers  established  by  the  Constitution.  These  powers  are  the  leg- 
islative power,  the  executive  power,  and  the  judiciary  power.  To- 
gether they  represent  the  national  sovereignty.  These  powers  are 
independent  one  in  respect  of  the  other  in  the  sphere  of  their  ac- 
tion and  in  the  limits  traced  by  the  Constitution.  The  Constitution 
gives  the  right  to  the  judicial  power  to  judge  of  the  legality  of 
royal  decrees,  but  the  Constitution  does  not  recognize  its  right  to 
judge  of  the  constitutionality  of  the  laws.  Such  are  the  relations, 
regulated  by  the  Constitution,  between  the  judicial  power  and  the 
legislative  power.  The  legislative  power  exercises  its  right  to  leg- 
islate to  the  fullest  degree  without  any  possible  intervention  from 
the  judicial  power.  In  the  matter  that  we  are  considering  it  is 
not  a  question  of  a  Belgian  law.  It  is  a  question  of  a  law  emanat- 
ing from  a  foreign  Power,  a  Power  de  facto,  provisional,  in  no  way 
substituted  in  its  sovereignty  to  the  Belgian  legislative  power, 
neither  drawing  its  right  to  legislate  from  our  Constitution  nor 
from  itself,  but  holding  it  from  an  international  convention  con- 
cluded between  Belgium  and  Germany.  It  is  that  convention  and 
not  our  Constitution  which  determines  the  nature  and  the  limits 
of  its  action;  it  is  that  convention  and  not  our  Constitution  that 
regulates  the  relations  of  the  Belgian  judicial  power  with  the  occu- 
pying Power.  In  relation  to  this  foreign  Power  the  Belgian  judicial 
power  does  not  represent  one  part  of  Belgian  sovereignty  only, 
it  represents  all  the  sovereignty,  it  represents  the  nation,  it  treats 
as  an  equal  with  the  occupying  Power.  To  act  otherwise  would 
be  to  abdicate  the  rights  of  the  Belgian  people  and  to  place  them 
in  the  hands  of  the  occupant,  to  invalidate  the  royal  signature  put 
at  the  bottom  of  a  treaty,  to  suppress  by  a  stroke  of  the  pen  the 
guarantees  stipulated  in  favour  of  the  occupied  country,  the  end 

481 


.BELGIUM 

simply  unfortunate.  More  than  ever  we  owe  her  our 
devotion,  body  and  soul.  To  defend  her  rights,  that  is 
also  to  fight  for  her. 

"Messieurs: 

"We  are  living  the  most  tragic  hours  that  any  people 
ever  knew.  All  about  us  are  destruction  and  ruin.  Every- 
where are  signs  of  mourning.  Our  army  has  lost  half 
of  its  effectives.  Its  percentage  of  dead  and  wounded 
will  not  be  equalled  by  the  belligerents.  There  remains 
to  us  only  a  bit  of  land  down  there  close  by  the  sea. 
There  the  Yser  rolls  its  waters  across  an  immense  plain 
dotted  with  tombs.  They  call  it  the  Belgian  cemetery. 
There  by  thousands  our  children  lie.  There  they  sleep 
their  last  sleep.  There  the  struggle  continues,  bitter 
and  without  mercy.  Your  sons,  Mr.  President,  are  at 
the  front;  my  son  is  there  also.  For  months  we  have 
lived  our  days  in  the  anxiety  of  what  the  morrow  may 
bring  forth.  Why  all  these  sacrifices;  why  all  these 
woes?  Belgium  could  have  avoided  these  disasters;  she 
could  have  saved  her  existence,  her  riches  and  the  lives  of 
her  own.  She  preferred  honour.  Shall  we  do  less  than 
our  children?  In  defending  our  secular  institutions  do 
we  not  defend,  we  also,  our  national  honour? 

"When  the  decree  of  the  Governor- General  in  Bel- 
gium, von  der  Goltz,  appeared  on  the  twentieth  of  No- 
vember, 1914,  relating  to  the  revocation  of  leases  and 
the  reduction  in  rents  I  was  asked  by  one  of  my  col- 
leagues of  the  Belgian  Bar  if  the  Bar  of  Brussels  did  not 
intend  to  protest.     My  response  was  that  the  Bar  of 

and  aim  of  the  Convention,  to  enforce  instead  of  to  limit  the  powers 
of  the  occupant,  to  put  irremediably  the  occupied  country  at  the 
mercy  and  under  the  power  of  the  occupant.  Such  is  the  judicial 
verity." 

482 


THE  BATONNIER  THEODOR 

Brussels  would  not  protest.  It  was  not  that  the  ques- 
tion of  the  legality  of  the  decree  could  not  at  that  mo- 
ment be  raised.  We  thought  that  there  was  no  primor- 
dial interest  in  doing  so,  no  essential  principle  of  our 
laws  having  been  affected.  In  that  moment  we  were 
conciliatory,  and  in  fact  we  have  never  assumed  toward 
the  occupying  Power  a  hostile  or  a  combative  attitude. 
After  the  decree  of  the  tenth  of  February  to  refrain 
from  protestation,  even  passively,  was  no  longer  possi- 
ble. To  accept  that  decree  would  have  been  to  accept 
our  downfall.  Called  to  choose  between  risking  what 
remained  to  us  of  our  prerogatives  or  to  sustain  a  humili- 
ation, the  Bar  decided  that  it  would  not  be  humiliated. 
In  your  turn  you  have  to  assume  an  attitude.  You  will 
do  it  in  the  independence  of  your  conscience.  You  will 
pronounce  the  law.  When  the  supreme  decision  of  jus- 
tice shall  have  been  rendered,  stating  the  law,  whatever 
may  be  that  decision  you  will  find  the  Bar  at  your  side. 
Between  you  and  us  there  will  be  no  separation.  Sons 
of  the  same  soil  and  of  the  same  nation,  we  shall  not  pre- 
sent the  spectacle  of  disunion.  Our  national  device  is: 
'Uunion  fait  la  force,'  It  has  not  always  been  re- 
spected in  the  happy  times  of  our  history.  To-day  when 
the  nation  is  gasping  under  the  load  of  its  misfortunes, 
yet  living  all  the  same,  with  hope  in  its  heart,  union  be- 
comes a  sacred  duty.  To  violate  it  would  be  a  crime  that 
the  bar  will  not  commit." 


LXIV 

THE  DECISION 

The  moving  argument  in  which  the  Batonnier,  speak- 
ing for  the  Bar  of  Belgium,  defined  his  country's  rights 
before  the  tribunals  of  international  law,  and  impeached 
one  of  the  greatest  Powers  in  history  of  having  violated 
that  law,  was  crowned,  on  the  twenty-second  of  April, 
1915,  by  a  decision  of  the  court  in  which  the  decrees  of 
the  Governor- General  were  declared  null  and  void  and 
of  no  force  in  Belgium.  This  decision,  however,  was  re- 
versed by  the  Court  of  Appeals,  and  when  the  case  was 
carried  to  the  Court  of  Cassation  the  decision  there, 
coming,  so  the  gossips  in  the  corridors  of  the  Palais  de 
Justice  said,  out  of  divided  councils,  was  against  Maitre 
Theodor  on  the  merits  of  the  case  at  Bar;  that  is,  the 
court  decided  that  the  Occupant,  under  international 
law,  had  not  gone  too  far  in  creating  the  tribunals  it  had 
set  up.  But  the  decision  did  lean  toward  Maitre  Theo- 
dor's  contention  that  the  occupant's  powers  were  limited 
by  international  conventions,  and  it  left  the  door  open  to 
that  decision  two  years  later,  when  the  entire  magistracy 
of  Belgium  resigned  as  a  protest  against  the  inroads  on 
Belgian  sovereignty  and  independence  which  the  Ger- 
mans had  gone  on  making.  If  Maitre  Theodor  was  not 
immediately  and  entirely  vindicated  by  the  court  at  the 
time,  he  may  be  said  to  have  had  a  moral  victory  when 
the  courts,  or  the  judges  of  the  courts,  adopted  in  that 
other  emergency  the  attitude  he  had  asked  them  to  adopt 
in  this.    But  whatever  view  may  be  taken  of  that  aspect 

484 


THE  DECISION 

of  the  matter,  Maitre  Theodor's  attitude  was  as  great 
and  courageous  an  act  of  resistance  as  any  ever  made 
by  patriots.  It  set  a  lofty  standard  for  official  attitude 
and  conduct  in  those  later  crises  which  menaced  the  very 
existence  of  the  Belgian  nation.  Other  deeds  were  more 
sensational,  more  dramatic,  others  more  deeply  im;- 
pressed  the  popular  imagination,  but  without  in  the  least 
detracting  from  their  courageous  quality  or  their  moral 
beauty,  they  were  not  of  the  fundamental  and  lasting 
importance  of  this  which  honours  the  name  of  Leon 
Theodor. 

I  used  to  meet  Maitre  Theodor  occasionally ;  he  would 
come  to  the  Legation  now  and  then  to  see  me.  He  rea- 
lized, of  course,  precisely  what  he  had  done ;  he  knew  that 
punishment  was  inevitable,  and  the  thought  of  leaving 
his  home,  his  family,  and  of  going  into  prison  and  exile, 
was  saddening  to  him.  But  he  was  always  smiling,  al- 
ways brave,  and  I  think  his  slender  figure,  with  the  ha- 
bitual scholar's  stoop,  was  resolutely  held  a  little  more 
erect  during  those  last  few  weeks  he  spent  in  Brussels 
waiting  for  the  end  he  knew  to  be  certain. 

He  sent  a  copy  of  his  argument  to  Dr.  von  Sandt,  and 
he  wrote  two  other  letters,  or  protests,  which  must  be 
noticed  in  order  to  complete  the  record  of  his  patriotic 
services.  One  of  those  letters,  addressed  to  Dr.  von 
Sandt,  relates  to  the  same  subject  as  the  argument  of 
the  layers,  as  it  was  always  referred  to,  and  was  the  re- 
ply of  the  lawyers  of  Brussels  to  the  gratuitous  indignity 
that  had  been  offered  them.  The  Council  of  the  Order 
of  Advocates,  at  its  sitting  on  the  nineteenth,  had 
adopted  this  rule: 

It  is  forbidden  to  all  lawyers  and  to  all  stagiaires  (law  students) 
to  contribute  by  whatever  means,  even  by  the  simple  recording  of 

485 


BELGIUM 

aidj  oumments,  conclusions,  memoires  or  notes,  to  the  functioning  of 
the  exceptional  jurisdictions  instituted  by  the  decree  of  the  German 
Government,  dated  the  3  February,  1915,  modifying  the  decree  of 
the  10  Vendemiaire,  Year  IV,  and  that  of  the  10  February,  1915, 
creating  tribunals  of  arbitration  of  disputes  in  the  matter  of  rents. 

The  Council  of  the  Order  of  Advocates,  not  wishing 
any  doubt  of  its  intentions  to  exist,  charged  the  Baton- 
nier  to  transmit  its  resolution  to  Dr.  von  Sandt  with  a 
statement  of  the  motives  that  had  led  to  its  adoption,  and 
the  Batonnier  sent  to  the  chief  of  the  Zivilverwaltung 
with  a  fearless  letter.^ 

^  "It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  the  decision  taken  is  in  no 
way  an  act  of  hostility  against  the  exercise,  by  the  occupying  Power, 
of  the  rights  which  international  law  and  the  convention  of  The 
Hague  confer  upon  it.  The  bar  knows  the  rights  of  the  occupant, 
respects  them,  and  will  scrupulously  avoid  interfering  with  their 
exercise.  The  feeling  that  has  guided  the  members  of  the  Council 
is  entirely  otherwise.  They  are  inspired  only  by  the  oath  which 
the  law  requires,  and  which  those  who  aspire  to  wear  the  robe  sol- 
emnly take.  The  lawyer,  on  being  called  to  the  bar,  takes  an  oath 
of  fidelity  to  the  Constitution  and  to  the  laws  of  the  Belgian  people. 
This  oath  is  not  a  vain  formula ;  it  binds  the  conscience. 

"Now  our  Constitution  says,  'nobody  can  be  deprived  against  his 
will  of  the  judge  which  tlie  law  assigns  him.  (Article  8.)  There 
can  be  created  no  commission  nor  exceptional  tribunal  under  any 
denomination  whatsoever.' 

"The  decrees  of  the  German  Government  of  the  3  and  the  10 
February,  1915,  violate  these  provisions.  The  Convention  of  The 
Hague,  far  from  excusing  these  violations,  forbids  them.  Accord- 
ing to  the  terms  of  the  Convention,  the  occupying  Power,  in  taking 
into  its  hands  the  authority  of  the  local  power,  'will  respect,  except 
in  the  case  of  absolute  impossibility,  the  laws  in  force  in  the  coun- 
try.*   The  text  is  as  precise  as  it  is  imperative." 

486 


THE  DECISION 

The  Batonnier  quotes  from  German  legal  authorities  to  sustain 
his  point,  cites  the  case  of  the  occupation  of  Alsace-Lorraine  before 
its  annexation  to  Germany,  and  continues: 

"The  inevitable  exigencies  of  the  war,  such  is  the  condition,  si^e 
qua  non,  of  the  modification  of  the  existing  laws  of  the  occupied 
country.  Outside  this  case,  the  occupying  Power  is  without  man- 
date, and  any  disposition  to  take  it,  if  the  Convention  of  The 
Hague  is  not  a  dead  letter,  must  be  held  as  illegal  and  null  and 
void. 

"Do  the  decrees  of  the  3  and  the  10  February  respect  the  laws 
in  force  in  Belgium? 

"The  decree  of  the  3  February  modifies  the  decree  of  the  10 
Vendemiaire,  Year  IV,  which  is  a  Belgian  law.  The  decree  of  the 
10  February,  1915,  modifies  profoundly  our  laws  on  the  competence 
of  the  courts.  Both  are  in  derogation  of  our  laws  as  to  the  organi- 
zation of  judiciary  power  and  violate  our  fundamental  pact.  Was 
there  any  inevitable  necessity  which  brought  about  these  decrees? 
"The  decree  of  Vendemiaire  has  been  in  operation  in  Belgium 
for  more  than  a  century.  Frequent  applications  have  been  mad&  of 
it  in  the  case  of  victims  of  pillage  without  any  complaint  from  them. 
Communes  alone  have  complained.  The  decree  of  Vendemiaire 
creates  for  towns  and  communes  a  very  difficult  situation;  many 
times  they  have  tried  to  escape  its  application  for  legal  reasons; 
invariably  the  Belgian  tribunals  have  decided  that  the  decrees  would 
continue  in  force. 

"The  decree  of  the  Governor-General  introduces  a  considerable 
change  in  this  decree.  It  takes  away  from  civil  tribunals  the  right 
to  apply  the  decree  of  Vendemiaire,  it  establishes  an  exceptional 
jurisdiction,  with  a  number  of  measures  that  literally  place  the 
communes  at  the  discretion  of  the  executive  power.  The  decree  of 
the  3  February  invokes  'obstacles  of  law  and  of  fact.*  What  are 
these  obstacles?  No  one  discerns  them.  The  decree  does  not  try 
to  define  them,  it  contents  itself  with  affirming  them.  The  text 
of  the  decree  removes  all  doubt  as  to  its  interpretation  and  denotes 
the  thought  that  inspires  it. 

"The  decree  aims  at  'the  excesses  that  were  committed  in  the 
month  of  August,  1914,  in  several  communes  of  Belgium.'    Now  the 

487 


BELGIUM 

greater  part  of  those  who  suffered  from  these  excesses  were  Ger- 
man subjects.  The  tribunal,  said  the  decree,  will  be  composed  of 
three  judges,  of  which  two  will  be  designated  by  the  German  au- 
thorities, and  the  third  by  the  Belgian  authorities. 

"The  end  sought  is  clear;  it  will  reflect  on  the  moral  authority 
of  the  decisions  which  will  be  pronounced  by  the  tribunals  to  be 
instituted;  it  is  an  insult  to  our  bench.  The  bench  does  not  merit 
this  blame;  it  has  never  failed  in  its  duty;  it  has  treated  the 
stranger  with  impartiality  and  has  always  given  him  good  measure. 
The  Germans  have  never  complained.  Our  justice  has  been  as 
hospitable  to  them  as  we  have  been  ourselves.  The  war  has  in  no 
way  diminished  this  desire  to  be  impartial;  perhaps  it  has  been 
accentuated  by  a  scruple  of  professional  delicacy,  easily  explained, 
and  very  natural. 

"Does  the  'inevitable  necessity'  required  by  the  framers  of  the 
Convention  of  The  Hague  exist  so  far  as  disputes  as  to  rent  are  con- 
cerned? Not  at  all.  Since  the  beginning  of  the  occupation  the 
good  will  of  the  court  and  of  the  bar  has  manifested  itself  in  the 
de^e  to  facilitate,  with  the  minimum  of  cost,  the  transactions 
between  landlord  and  tenant.  A  new  jurisprudence  has  been  in- 
augurated by  the  President  of  the  referees  to  decide  on  cases  of 
evictions;  a  special  chamber  has  been  arranged  for  the  amicable 
adjustment  of  disputes  born  and  to  be  born.  The  public  prosecutor 
has  given  instructions  to  the  bailiffs  not  to  intervene  except  when 
forced  to  do  so;  and  to  avoid  as  much  as  possible  the  creation  of 
costs.  The  justices  of  the  peace  are  inspired  by  the  same  desire. 
The  bar  has  created  an  office  of  free  consultation,  a  section  of  rents. 
Where  does  the  absolute  necessity  for  change  appear? 

"And  what  necessity  is  there  to  surround  a  justice  of  the  peace 
with  two  assessors?  Why  place  him  under  this  tutelage?  Does 
there  exist  in  Belgium  a  person  better  situated  to  settle  alone  the 
disputes  which  our  law  gives  to  his  jurisdiction?  What  compe- 
tence, what  light  will  the  assessors,  landlord  and  tenant,  bring  to 
him  in  a  matter  where  everything  has  been  settled  by  good  sense, 
law,  and  custom? 

"The  decree  excludes  the  lawyers  from  these  arbitrary  tribunals. 
The  bar  does  not  complain  of  this  exclusion.     Had  the  decree  not 

488 


THE  DECISION 

done  so  the  bar  itself  would  have  forbidden  its  members  access  to 
these  courts.  That  which  it  recalls  to  this  provision  of  the  decree 
is  its  principle  and  the  intention  which  dictated  it.  The  bar  is 
aimed  at  in  this  decree  as  was  the  bench  in  the  other.  In  this  sense 
the  decree  will  mark  a  date  in  its  history.  For  the  first  time  since 
the  Order  existed  it  will  have  suffered,  on  account  of  the  legislator, 
a  real  stigma.  This  stigma  it  has  not  merited.  The  Belgian  legis- 
lator, the  Belgian  public,  the  stranger,  have  rendered  it  on  many 
occasions  the  most  striking  homage.  The  Belgian  bar  is  a  great 
and  splendid  bar.  It  will  continue  its  task  and  hold  to  its  motto: 
'All  by  Right.  All  for  Honour.'  {'Tout  par  le  Droit.  Tour  pour 
I'Honneur.')" 

Maitre  Theodor  had  written  another  letter,  on  the  seventeenth 
of  February,  1915,  addressed  to  the  Governor-General  himself, 
which  while  of  a  more  general  nature,  so  boldly  and  so  clearly  de- 
scribes the  German  judicial  system  in  Belgium,  and  the  German 
attitude  in  the  administration  of  justice,  that  it  is  worthy  of  more 
than  a  casual  reading. 

"Looking  at  this  question  without  passion  and  without  preju- 
dice," Maitre  Theodor  said,  "the  man  of  law  can  not  fail  to  recog- 
nize that  everything  in  the  German  judicial  organization  is  contrary 
to  the  principles  of  international  law.  The  first  principle  of  all, 
the  most  essential,  without  which  one  can  not  conceive  either  the 
legitimacy  or  even  the  possibility  of  a  judicial  power  is  that  of 
publication;  that  is  to  say,  giving  notice  to  the  public  of  everything 
of  a  nature  to  enlighten  it  as  to  the  institution  of  established  power, 
the  laws  of  its  functioning,  its  competence,  the  prescriptions  which 
it  authorizes,  and  the  measures  that  should  guarantee  their  efficiency. 

"Before  giving  the  order  to  a  citizen  the  Power  which  commands 
must  reveal  its  existence.  Before  imposing  a  penalty  on  a  punish- 
able act  it  must  make  known  judicially  the  act  which  it  punishes 
and  the  penalty  that  it  prescribes  for  it.  This  is  commanded  by 
common  sense,  this  is  in  conformity  with  international  law,  this 
is  required  by  the  Belgian  Constitution,  which  is  obligatory  on  the 
occupying  Power  in  the  same  way  that  it  is  obligatory  on  the  na- 
tional Power." 

The  Batonnier  cites  the  terms  of  the  Belgian  Constitution  which 
provides  that  no  tribunal,  no  jurisdiction  can  be  established  except 

489 


BELGIUM 

in  virtue  of  the  law,  that  no  penalty  can  be  established  and  applied 
except  by  virtue  of  the  law,  that  no  law  is  obligatory  until  it  has 
been  published,  and  continues: 

"Contrary  to  these  imperative  requirements  the  Belgian  public 
has  not  been  advised  by  any  publication  of  the  establishment  of 
German  military  tribunals  on  our  soil,  A  vague  allusion  was  made 
to  it  in  an  afjiche  of  the  Baron  von  LUttwitz  in  the  month  of  Sep- 
tember, 1914,  where  very  incidental  mention  is  made  of  a  'tribunal 
legally  constituted.'  In  what  consists  a  tribunal  legally  consti- 
tuted, what  is  its  composition,  what  is  its  competence,  what  is  the 
extent  of  its  jurisdiction?  Are  its  sentences  sovereign  or  are  they 
susceptible  of  remedy  or  appeal?  What  are  these  remedies?  Is 
it  true  that  besides  this  tribunal  legally  constituted  there  are  others 
represented  by  single  magistrates,  temporary  and  revocable  at  pleas- 
ure, sovereign  judges  of  fact,  of  procedure,  of  the  offence,  and  of 
the  penalty;  at  once  legislative,  executive  and  judicial  power,  able 
to  pronounce  the  gravest  penalties? 

"Is  it  true  that  between  these  two  jurisdictions  there  exists  no 
line  of  demarcation,  that  for  the  same  act  the  culpable  may  equally 
have  to  respond  before  each  of  them,  and  that  thus  the  guarantee 
offered  by  the  establishment  of  a  tribunal  legally  constituted  is  no 
more  than  a  vain  appearance? 

"Of  all  this  the  public  knows  nothing.  The  lawyer  himself,  called 
by  his  mission  to  enlighten  the  public,  can  not  say  anything  defi- 
nitely. Questioned  as  to  the  possible  consequences  of  an  act  from 
the  German  repressive  point  of  views  he  will  find  neither  in  the 
laws,  nor  in  the  works  of  jurisconsults,  nor  in  his  conscience,  the 
elements  of  an  accurate  response. 

"The  necessity  of  a  publication,  legally  organized,  imposes  itself 
in  a  way  much  more  imperious  when  it  is  a  question  of  infractions 
and  penalties.  It  is  a  principle  admitted  and  proclaimed  by  all  the 
jurists  of  every  country.  How  many  infractions,  however,  have 
been  brought  to  the  knowledge  of  the  Belgian  public  by  simple 
a1fich.es,  without  having  been  made  precise  or  definite  in  any  of  their 
constituent  elements  ?  How  many  acts  have  been  punished,  the  un- 
lawful character  of  which  is  unknown  to  the  population?     How 

490 


THE  DECISION 

many  times  has  not  the  penalty  been  announced  by  this  brief  for- 
mula 'The  guilty  will  be  punished*  or  'I  will  punish'? 

"This  absence  of  certitude  is  not  only  the  negation  of  all  prin- 
ciple of  law;  it  weighs  on  the  mind  and  on  the  conscience.  It 
confuses  the  imagination;  it  seems  to  be  a  permanent  menace  for 
all,  and  the  danger  is  all  the  more  real  because  these  jurisdictions 
admit  of  no  public  procedure,  because  the  accused  is  not  told  what 
is  alleged  against  him,  and  no  right  of  defense  is  assured  to  him. 
It  is  justice  without  control,  it  is  the  judge  left  to  himself,  that 
is  to  say,  to  his  impressions,  to  his  prejudices,  to  his  surroundings. 
It  is  the  accused  abandoned  in  his  distress,  alone,  grappling  with  an 
all-powerful  adversary.  This  justice  without  control  and  without 
warrant  constitutes  for  us  the  most  dangerous  and  the  most  op- 
pressive of  illegalities.  We  can  not  conceive  of  justice  as  a  juridi- 
cal or  moral  possibility  without  free  defense. 

"Free  defence ;  that  is  to  say,  the  light  thrown  on  all  the  elements 
of  the  proceeding,  the  public  conscience  making  itself  heard  in  the 
bosom  of  the  court,  the  right  to  say  all  in  a  most  respectful  manner, 
and  the  courage  as  well  to  dare  all,  placed  at  the  service  of  the 
unfortunate,  of  justice,  and  of  right.  It  is  one  of  the  great  con- 
quests of  our  internal  history,  it  is  the  corner-stone  of  individual 
liberty. 

"What  are  our  means  of  information  ?  Besides  the  police  magis- 
trates, *  who  are  men  of  integrity  and  of  high  conscience  I  am 
profoundly  convinced,  I  see  two  sources  of  judicial  information, 
the  secret  police  and  the  informer.  The  secret  police,  without  ex- 
ternal mark,  mixing  with  the  population  in  the  street,  in  the  cafes, 
on  the  platforms  of  trams,  eavesdropping,  listening  to  conversa- 
tions, lying  in  wait  not  only  for  acts  but  for  intentions.  And  the 
informers — the  race  of  them,  it  is  said,  has  multiplied.  Of  what 
value  can  be  their  declarations,  inspired  by  hatred,  by  rancour, 
and  by  base  cupidity?  Such  auxiliaries  can  not  bring  to  the  work 
of  justice  any  useful  collaboration.  If  one  adds  to  this  total  ab- 
sence of  verification  the  preventive  arrests,  the  long  detentions,  the 
domiciliary  searches  (perquisitions),  one  will  have  an  idea  of  the 

*  The  Bdtonnier's  generous  allusion  is  to  German  police  magis- 
trates. 

491 


BELGIUM 

moral  tortures  to  which  our  aspirations,  our  thought,  and  our  liber- 
ties at  this  moment  are  subjected. 

"The  Belgian,  free  by  atavism,  accustomed  to  think  and  to  speak 
freely,  without  constraint  in  the  intimacy  of  his  home  as  in  the 
public  place,  exercising  the  right  of  criticism  against  men,  things 
and  institutions,  sparing  no  one,  no  matter  how  highly  placed,  nor 
himself,  watches  himself  henceforth,  trusts  no  one,  not  even  him- 
self. He  empties  his  drawers  of  the  most  inoffensive  papers. 
Thinkers  hesitate  to  gather  facts  for  the  purpose  of  history  for 
fear  that  one  day  an  indiscreet  baud  may  take  possession  of  them 
and  there  uncover  a  crime,  the  crime  of  intention. 

"Will  you  say  that  we  live  under  martial  law,  that  we  endure 
the  hard  necessities  of  war,  that  all  must  give  way  before  the  supe- 
rior interest  of  your  armies?  I  understand  martial  law  for  armies 
in  the  field.  It  is  an  immediate  reply  to  an  aggression  against 
troops,  repressed  without  phrases,  the  summary  justice  of  the  army 
chief  responsible  for  his  soldiers.  But  our  armies  are  far  away; 
we  are  no  longer  in  the  zone  of  military  operations;  nothing  men- 
aces your  troops ;  the  population  is  calm.  The  people  have  resumed 
their  work,  as  you  have  invited  them  to  do.  Every  one  applies  him- 
self. Judicial  magistrates,  provincial  magistrates,  communal  mag- 
istrates, the  clergy,  are  all  at  their  posts,  admirable  in  their  civ- 
icism, united  in  the  same  glow  of  national  fellowship  and  of  fra- 
ternity. However,  this  calm  is  not  oblivion.  .  .  .  The  Belgian 
people  used  to  live  happy  in  this  corner  of  the  earth,  confident  in 
its  dream  of  independence.  It  has  seen  this  dream  broken.  It 
has  seen  its  country  ruined  and  devastated,  its  old  soil,  so  hos- 
pitable, has  been  sown  with  millions  of  tombs  where  sleep  our 
very  own.  The  war  has  caused  tears  to  flow  that  no  hand  will 
ever  dry.  Its  bruised  soul  will  neater  forget.  But  this  people  has 
a  profound  respect  of  its  duty;  it  knows  the  laws  of  war,  and  your 
rights  as  occupant.  It  will  respect  them.  Is  not  the  hour  come 
to  consider  as  closed  the  period  of  invasion,  and  to  substitute  for 
exceptional  measures  the  regime  of  occupation  such  as  is  defined  by 
international  law  and  the  Convention  of  The  Hague  which  traces 
the  limits  of  the  occupying  Power  and  imposes  obligations  on  the 
occupied  coimtry? 

492 


THE  DECISION 

"Is  not  the  hour  come  also  to  restore  the  Palace  of  Justice  to  the 
judiciary  body?  The  military  occupation  of  the  palace  is  a  vio- 
lation of  the  Convention  of  The  Hague.  It  has  been  stated  in  this 
connection,  and  with  reason,  that  the  occupying  Power  is  only  a 
tenant.  Whoever  says  tenant  says  care  of  the  thing  and  usage  in 
conformity  to  its  ends.  But  to  my  way  of  thinking  the  question 
is  still  higher. 

"The  Convention  of  The  Hague  protects  establishments  conse- 
crated to  religion,  to  science,  and  to  art.  It  likens  them  to  private 
property.  It  is  the  homage  which  it  renders  to  the  great  moral 
forces  of  which  these  establishments  are  the  visible  expression. 
For  the  same  reason  the  Palace  of  Justice  should  enjoy  the  same 
immunity.  Among  the  moral  forces,  exists  there  one  superior  to 
justice?  This  dominates  all.  Old  as  humanity,  eternal  as  the 
need  of  man  and  of  peoples  to  be  and  to  feel  themselves  protected, 
it  is  at  the  base  of  all  civilization.  Art  and  Science  are  its  tribu- 
taries. Religions  live  and  prosper  in  its  shadow.  Is  it  not  itself 
a  religion? 

"Belgium  has  erected  a  temple  to  it  in  her  capital.  This  temple, 
which  is  our  pride,  is  transformed  into  a  barracks.  A  slight  part, 
growing  smaller  every  day,  is  reserved  to  the  courts  and  tribunals. 
Magistrates  and  lawyers  have  access  to  it  by  the  back  stairs.  How- 
ever painful  the  conditions  under  which  they  are  called  to  render 
justice,  the  magistrates  have  decided,  nevertheless,  to  stay.  The 
bar  has  placed  itself  beside  the  magistrates.  Used  to  an  atmos- 
phere of  deference  and  of  dignity,  they  do  not  recognize  each 
other  in  this  scenery  of  the  guard-room.  And,  in  fact,  justice  sur- 
rounded by  so  little  respect,  is  it  still  justice? 

"It  is  not  the  proximity  of  your  soldiers  that  offends  us;  we 
honour  their  courage  and  their  patriotism;  what  offends  us  is  the 
contact  with  bayonets  and  the  thousand  indefinable  things  that 
accompany  all  quartering  in  barracks.  That  which  wounds  us  is 
the  small  regard  that  they  seem  to  have  for  our  persons  and  for 
our  functions. 

"You  have  your  legitimate  pride  of  the  soldier,  we  have  our  pro- 
fessional pride.  They  are  inspired  by  the  same  high  sentiment  of 
our  duties  and  of  the  mission  which  we  are  called  upon  to  ful- 
fill.   They  have  the  right  to  an  equal  respect. 

493 


BELGIUM 

"Excellence : 

"You  represent  among  us  one  of  the  most  powerful  empires 
that  the  world  has  known.  You  are  might.  Might  does  not  ex- 
clude right.  You  hold  from  your  Sovereign  and  your  conscience 
the  task  to  conciliate  them  in  such  measure  as  the  necessities  of 
war  will  permit,  and  as  the  respect  of  imperishable  right  and  of 
human  conscience  commands. 

"I  know  no  mission  higher  or  more  beautiful. 

"I  beg  Your  Excellency  to  accept,  etc.  ..."  • 


LXV 

THE  ATMOSPHERE  OF  THE  OCCUPATION 

There  was,  in  this  regime,  the  remorseless  grip  of 
which  was  only  faintly  indicated  by  the  cries  it  now  and 
then  wrung  from  its  victims,  something  that  went  deeper, 
something  that  goes  to  the  very  core  of  the  human  heart. 
Death  itself  is  soon  accomplished,  but  it  was  not  only 
what  the  soldiers  had  done  to  the  dead,  it  was  what  they 
were  doing  to  the  living ;  it  was  the  violation  of  all  per- 
sonal right,  the  contempt  of  all  personal  dignity,  the  in- 
cessant, calculated,  studied  humiliation  that  was  inflicted. 
What  the  judges  and  the  lawyers  felt  when  they  climbed 
those  back  stairs,  in  the  palace  where  once  they  had 
swept  in  their  robes,  every  citizen  felt  in  the  presence  of 
some  similar  indignity.  To  see  that  lovable  people,  once 
the  gayest  in  the  earth,  humiliated,  trodden  upon, 
stripped  of  every  right,  was  to  feel  the  vicarious  shame 
of  a  stupendous  and  unprecedented  insult.  It  was  not 
immediately  apparent;  one  had  to  live  in  it  and  be  of  it; 
one  had  to  breathe  that  atmosphere  for  a  while,  to  realise 
it  in  all  its  utter  shame  and  degradation.  It  was  curious 
and  interesting  to  note  its  effect  upon  strangers.  An 
old  friend,  Mr.  Albert  Jay  Nock,  came  across  the  sea 
to  visit  me,  but  after  a  few  days  he  went  away;  the  at- 
mosphere choked  him.  Dean  Howard  McClenahan,  of 
Princeton,  spent  a  fortnight  in  Brussels,  and  saw  Tam- 
ines,  and  could  find  no  words  to  express  his  horror.  Sen- 
ator Lafayette  Young,  of  Iowa,  was  there  and  went 

495 


BELGIUM 

away  with  the  outraged  feeHngs  of  one  who  knew  and 
loved  liberty. 

But  for  us  who  could  not  go  away  there  was  no  escape. 
Toward  evening,  when  there  was  a  lull  in  the  im- 
portunate visits,  I  used  to  flee  the  Legation  and  go  for 
a  walk  alone,  trying  to  forget  for  awhile ;  I  would  walk 
to  les  Hangs  d'lxelles,  where  Samuel's  statue  of 
Eulenspiegel  would  be  brooding  in  the  winter  twilight, 
the  young  hero  of  Flanders  sitting  there  wistfully  gaz- 
ing afar,  while  a  maiden  of  grace  and  charm  and  dignity 
— the  Nele  of  the  legend  that  is  the  personification  of 
the  spirit  of  the  land — whispered  in  his  ear;  the  lamps 
sent  their  long,  glimmering  reflections  over  the  dark 
waters,  two  ducks  moved  along  swiftly,  leaving  in  their 
wake  two  long,  diverging  ripples,  a  scene  for  Whistler's 
hand!  The  moist  air  was  pleasant  to  the  lungs,  and  the 
grey  skies,  according  somewhat  with  our  sombre  spirits, 
diffused  a  soft  light,  restful  to  the  eyes,  though  a  day  of 
sunshine,  rare  in  our  experience,  was  welcome  for  the 
cheer  it  brought.  Sometimes  I  would  go  far  out  the 
Avenue  de  Tervueren,  where  a  year  before  we  used  to 
see  the  amiable  Belgians  at  the  Trois  Couleurs  taking 
their  ease  at  their  inn ;  and  the  chateau  of  the  Due  d'Or- 
leans  just  showing  over  the  trees,  and  the  line  of  the 
Dark  Foret  beyond. 

There  was,  of  course,  the  Avenue  Louise  and  the  Bois, 
like  an  English  park,  beautiful  at  sunset,  a  swan  gliding 
across  the  shining  surface  of  the  little  lake ;  if  it  was  rain- 
ing, as  it  was  apt  to  be,  here  was  another  picture,  the 
great  trunks  of  its  trees  a  vivid  green,  their  boles  glisten- 
ing with  moisture  through  a  veil  of  mist,  and  far  away 
in  the  depths  of  the  woods,  down  a  distant  road,  a  woman 

496 


THE  ATMOSPHERE  OF  THE  OCCUPATION 

laden  with  bundles  of  fagots,  and  some  men  cutting 
trees. 

And  there  were  the  charming  streets  of  the  lower  town ; 
with  the  pignons  of  the  old  Spanish  houses,  and  dark 
Spanish  eyes,  too,  glowing  in  the  evening  lamp  light; 
and  the  market  near  Stie.  Catherine's  and  the  fish-market 
near  the  Quai-au-Bois-a-bruler.  And,  what  few  ever  go 
to  see,  the  smallest  street  in  Brussels,  or  in  the  world, 
perhaps,  la  Rue  d'Une  Personne.  I  walked  thus  alone, 
in  the  late  afternoons,  over  all  Brussels,  and  I  retain  in 
memory  innumerable  impressionistic  pictures  of  the  city 
that  I  came  to  know  so  well,  and  loved  the  more  as  she 
opened  her  soul  to  me ;  I  came  to  love  every  stone,  every 
roof,  and  every  chimney-pot  in  the  whole  agglomeration, 
though  with  little  shadows  of  apprehension,  for  I  knew, 
alas !  that  loving  always  includes  losing.  De  Leval  went 
with  me  now  and  then ;  he  knew  where  the  old  engravings 
were,  and  he  was  himself  a  famous  collector  of  hoites 
hollandaises,  those  curious  old  Dutch  tobacco-boxes  of 
copper,  prettily  carved,  sometimes  with  religious  sub- 
jects, sometimes,  what  seems  to  have  been  more  to  the 
taste  of  the  soldiers  to  whom  they  were  presented  by 
Kings  during  the  Hundred  Years'  War,  with  scenes  of 
a  more  secular  character  and  appeal.  The  Kings  used  to 
present  these  boxes  to  their  soldiers,  and  they  seem  to 
have  been  all  that  the  soldiers  ever  got  out  of  the  war, 
if  they  survived  it  at  all.  .  .  .  It  was  disturbing,  how- 
ever, to  talk  of  the  Hundred  Years'  War.  Would  our 
war  last  so  long? 

La  Rue  d'Une  Personne,  to  be  sure,  is  but  a  gloomy 
little  alley,  with  a  lamp  burning  over  it,  and  it  leads  back 
to  some  dubious  congeries  of  buildings  where  illusion 
ends;  for  in  all  the  little  streets  of  that  quarter  various 

497 


BELGIUM 

cabarets  had  been  turned  into  dives  where  German  sol- 
diers caroused,  as  though  they  were  in  a  western  mining 
town. 

So  there  was  after  all  no  escape,  either  there  or  in  the 
opposite  direction,  for  on  the  way  in  the  Avenue  de  Ter- 
vueren,  there  on  the  arch  of  the  Cinquantenaire,  the 
German  flag  floated  on  the  quadriga. 

I  had  been  under  an  intolerable  depression  because  of 
the  sudden  news  of  the  death  of  a  younger  brother.  But 
everybody  was  depressed  in  Brussels.  The  strain  grew 
more  and  more  tense,  what  with  the  closed  houses,  the 
sad,  deserted  appearance  of  the  streets,  the  idle  populace, 
and  the  still  more  idle  soldiers  who  infested  the  town — 
their  idleness  was  so  vacuous  and  vicious,  born  of  the 
utter  lack  of  all  human  responsibility.  There  was,  too, 
the  lack  of  all  diversion,  all  movement,  all  gaiety.  There 
was  nothing  for  most  of  the  people  to  do  but  to  wander 
up  and  down  the  melancholy  streets;  the  shops  were 
darkened  because  they  must  economize  in  light;  they 
could  not  renew  their  stocks,  and  the  few  lighted  lamps 
only  intensified  the  gloom  that  settled  more  and  more 
upon  the  world. 

Then  a  day  of  mild  weather  would  steal  into  the  late 
winter  calendar ;  there  would  be  a  touch  of  spring  in  the 
air.  Ah !  If  spring  could  only  come  and  mean  what  it 
once  had  meant!  But  what  could  spring  or  anything  be 
without  liberty?  And  how  could  one  be  otherwise  than 
depressed  in  the  daily  presence  of  the  great  injustice 
with  which  the  very  air  was  reeking? 

No,  there  could  be  no  escape  so  long  as  that  endured. 
Better  that  the  light  of  the  sun  go  out  and  the  earth  turn 
cold  and  dead,  and  the  heavens  be  rolled  together  like 

498 


THE  ATMOSPHERE  OF  THE  OCCUPATION 

a  scroll,  than  that  mankind  be  ground  under  the  heels  of 
swaggering  officers  ignorant  of  all  the  essential  things  in 
life,  with  Iron  Crosses  and  ribbons  of  dirty  white  and 
black,  and  their  brutal  soldiers  swarming  everywhere, 
lifting  their  legs  at  the  "Achtungr  of  a  sous-officier  in 
their  graceless  and  ridiculous  goose-step. 

''Pourquoi  les  soldats  font-ils  comme  ca,  Maman?" 
asked  a  little  boy  of  his  mother,  as  they  stood  on  a  corner 
waiting  for  them  to  pass. 

*^Ahj  tu  scds"  responded  the  mother,  "les  Allemands 
saluent  toujours  avec  le  pied!" 

One  scene  resumed  it  all  one  cold  morning.  There  had 
been  a  new  affiche  that  day  saying  that  all  political  dis- 
cussion must  cease  in  Belgium,  no  meetings  were  to  be 
held,  no  one  was  to  discuss  political  matters  or  criticize 
the  Germans  or  the  war  they  were  waging.  Along  the 
boulevard  a  company  of  German  troops,  old  men  of  the 
Landsturm,  trudged  wearily.  And  then,  suddenly, 
around  the  corner  hove  into  sight  a  German  officer,  large 
and  fat  and  smoothly  fair,  his  pink  jowls  glowing,  his 
light  blue  cape  floating  in  the  wind,  revealing  his  enor- 
mous paunch  and  the  revolver  swinging  in  its  holster. 
The  under  officer  commanding  the  company  shouted  out 
his  "Achtung!"  and  the  old  men  of  the  Landsturm  with 
that  docile,  submissive,  bovine  expression,  looked  up  at 
the  officer,  and  straining  their  old  legs  in  the  ridiculous 
goose-step,  passed  on.  And  there,  not  far  away,  the 
long  waiting  line  at  a  soup  kitchen,  shivering  in  its  rags, 
stretched  in  woe  and  misery  and  hunger  far  down  the 
street. 

No,  there  was  no  escape.  One  could  not  banish  from 
the  mind  that  line  of  pinched,  pathetic  faces,  those  hud- 
dled forms  in  old  clothes.    And  duryig  the  remainder  of 

499 


BELGIUM 

my  walk  I  had  to  combat  an  inward  rage  and  rebellion 
at  the  whole  miserable  business,  the  stupendous  inso- 
lence, the  appalling  insult  to  human  dignity  and  intelli- 
gence. Those  swinish  soldiers,  with  their  thick  bandy 
legs,  their  brutish  necks  and  little  piggish  eyes,  and  that 
conception  of  respect — the  goose-step.  And  this  was 
Germany  after  forty  years  of  blood  and  iron  and  dis- 
cipline and  government  to  the  last  degree,  Kultur,  and 
so  forth,  its  own  people  the  first  to  be  conquered  and  en- 
slaved, surrendering  their  own  liberties  and  ready  to  help 
deprive  other  people  of  theirs,  like  the  elephants  in  Siam 
that  are  first  captured,  then  trained  to  lure  their  kind 
into  chains. 


LXVI 

RESISTANCE 

Yes,  this  was  Germany,  after  forty-four  short  years 
of  blood  and  iron — Germany's  iron,  and  Europe's,  and 
in  the  end,  America's,  blood.  For  the  aims  of  modern 
Germany,  the  nation  founded  on  the  lie  of  the  despatch 
of  Ems,  and  the  ideals  of  America,  a  nation  founded  on 
the  truth  of  the  Declaration  of  Philadelphia,  could  not 
long  abide  in  a  world  as  small  as  this  had  been  made 
by  steam  and  gas  and  electricity  and  steel. 

Strange,  too,  as  Golden  Rule  Jones  used  to  say,  they 
are  all  people,  "just  folks."  Occasionally,  in  those  pass- 
ing troops  if  one  looked  closely  one  did  see  fine  faces, 
ruddy  old  visages,  crowned  with  white  hair  and  adorned 
with  majestic  beards,  something  patriarchal  and  digni- 
fied about  them.  But  the  goose-step  seemed  to  degrade 
them.  Now  and  then,  too,  there  was  a  sad  face  among 
them;  they  did  not  all  relish  the  glory  of  war. 

A  Belgian  once  made  a  curious  confession  to  me.  In 
the  early  days  of  the  occupation,  half  mad  with  hate 
and  hot  for  revenge,  he  used  to  imagine  himself  some 
day  killing  a  German  soldier;  he  said  that  he  did  not 
allow  himself  to  go  to  the  length  of  forming  any  such 
intention,  but  he  used  to  find  a  peculiar  satisfaction  as 
he  strolled  along  the  streets  in  dramatizing  himself  in 
the  act  of  killing  one  of  the  men  in  field  grey.  In  his 
walks,  playing  with  this  dangerous  idea,  he  would  select 
his  victim,  say  to  himself,  "Suppose  that  I  were  to  decide 
to  kill  one  of  them,  which  one  of  them  would  it  be?'* 

501 


BELGIUM 

He  would  see  one,  but  on  coming  up,  on  looking  closely, 
he  would  say  to  himself,  "No,  not  that  one;  I  couldn't 
kill  him."  He  would  meet  another,  but  no,  he  would 
say,  "I  couldn't  kill  him."  And  so  on;  it  was  always 
thus,  always  something  in  each  one  of  them  with  its 
human  appeal,  something  that  moved  him  to  pity  if  not 
to  forgiveness,  and  in  this  odd  psychological  experience 
he  never  once  saw  one  whom  he  could  have  brought 
himself  to  slay,  never  saw  the  victim  of  his  desperate 
imagining. 

The  older  Germany  had  meant  so  much  that  was  good 
and  pleasant  to  think  upon — all  the  various  connota- 
tions of  such  names  as  Beethoven,  Mozart,  Handel, 
Wagner,  Schiller,  and  Goethe.  There  had  been  Car- 
lyle's  vast  enthusiasm,  too,  his  translation  of  Schiller's 
works  and  his  tremendous  book  on  the  Great  Frederick. 
Then  the  Rhine,  the  legends,  the  songs,  and  all  that,  and 
the  traditions  of  1848,  Carl  Schurz,  Franz  Sigel,  and 
their  like.  All  this  had  passed  away.  There  comes  an 
hour,  as  Mr.  Guglielmo  Ferrero  has  said,  in  the  lives 
of  nations  as  of  men,  when  a  choice  must  be  made  be- 
tween moral  and  material  success.  Germany  had  made 
the  choice,  and  the  old  Germany  was  gone,  never  to  re- 
turn. 

But  in  Belgium  resistance  was  mounting  steadily;  not 
the  foolish  and  impotent  resistance  of  blind  force,  the 
franc-tireur,  the  concealed  assassin  and  the  flaming  re- 
volt, but,  what  is  so  much  stronger,  so  wholly  irresistible, 
baffling  to  bayonets  and  mitrailleuse,  the  moral  resist- 
ance of  a  whole  united  people.  Belgium  had  forgotten 
the  old  quarrels,  the  old  divisions  of  politics  and  race, 
even  those  more  acerbic  differences  of  religion.  The 
old  saying  that  "Walloon  and  Flemish  are  but  given 

502 


RESISTANCE 

names,  the  family  name  is  Belgian"  had  become  a  ver- 
ity, testified  by  a  thousand  acts  a  day.  The  old  social 
cleavage  was  not  so  wide;  men  of  all  ranks  worked  to- 
gether. Despite  the  prohibition,  many  Jittle  patriotic 
medals  were  being  sold.  The  numismatic  art  is  carried 
farther  in  Belgium  than  in  any  country  in  the  world, 
save  France;  the  whole  history  of  the  land  is  told  in 
medallions.  There  were  portraits  of  the  King  and 
Queen;  one  of  them  bore  the  profile  of  the  King  and 
on  the  reverse  the  words  "Beige  toujours!" 

Even  the  children  resisted.  There  is  a  word,  con- 
sidered highly  improper  in  the  French  language,  which, 
in  the  human  need  for  human  expression  began  to  have 
a  tremendous  vogue ;  a  gentleman  inadvertently  uttered 
it  in  the  presence  of  Cardinal  Mercier  one  day,  and 
then  instantly  begged  his  pardon.  But  the  sensitive 
face  of  the  great  man  lighted  up  with  its  sweet,  humor- 
ous smile,  and  he  said: 

"C'est  un  mot  qui  vole  de  houclie  en  bouche  mainte- 
nant,  et  tout  le  monde  s'en  sert." 

It  does  not  sound  so  terrible  in  the  English  ear.  One 
afternoon  a  little  girl  of  six  years,  the  daughter  of  a 
noble  family,  was  in  the  tram  with  her  nurse,  and  seeing 
a  German  soldier  eating  a  sausage,  remarked, 

''Maman,  voild  un  cochon  qui  en  mange  un  autre." 
Thereupon  a  German  officer  who  was  in  the  tram  leaned 
over  and  said  to  her  very  seriously  and  severely,  that 
he  could  speak  French,  English,  Italian,  and  Spanish, 
and  the  child  gravely  looked  up  at  him  and  said: 

''Ah!    Comme  da  doit  etre  commode  pour  voyager!'' 

When  toward  the  middle  of  January  orders  were  is- 
sued to  the  effect  that  all  foreigners — except  Germans 
— should  report  at  the  Ecole  Militaire  to  be  enrolled, 

503 


BELGIUM 

and  the  turn  of  the  English  women,  for  the  most  part 
governesses  or  nurses,  came,  they  did  not  forget  the 
splendid  injunction  to  "be  British"  and  sang  "Rule 
Britannia!"  in  the  face  of  the  officers. 

There  were  always  "incidents."  Down  in  the  Place 
Ste.  Catherine,  near  the  church  of  that  name,  there  was 
a  statue  of  Ferrer,  placed  there,  I  believe,  by  the  Social- 
ists, a  great  bronze  figure  in  the  nude,  a  man  holding 
aloft  a  flaming  torch.  Suddenly  one  day  the  city  au- 
thorities received  a  letter  from  the  Military  Governor 
of  Brussels,  saying  that  he  had  been  told  that  the  statue 
had  been  "soiled  in  a  grievous  manner  by  a  malevolent 
hand."  {Ainsi  qu'on  me  Vannonce,  le  monument  Ferrer  a 
He  saM,  en  des  proportions  fdcheuses,  par  une  main 
malveillante.)  Therefore  the  city  authorities  must  at 
once  remove  the  monument.  The  city  authorities.  Cath- 
olics, independents,  liberals,  socialists,  unanimously  re- 
fused; there  was  a  long  correspondence,  and  excitement 
for  a  week;  the  local  authorities  refused  to  move  in  the 
matter,  and  finally  the  Germans  sent  soldiers  down  to 
the  Place  Ste.  Catherine,  built  a  scaffold  and  took  down 
the  bronze  statue,  while  a  number  of  curious  Belgians, 
held  at  discreet  distance  by  armed  guards,  looked  on  in 
amusement.  The  statue  was  removed  with  the  greatest 
difficulty;  they  had  to  use  flaming  chemical  lamps  to 
melt  the  poor  man's  feet  in  order  to  get  him  off  his 
stone,  and  then  the  bare  pedestal  stood  there,  a  much 
more  eloquent  monument  to  liberty  of  conscience  in  the 
world  than  the  statue  had  ever  been.  And  then  the 
Germans  took  away  the  pedestal,  and  levelled  and 
smoothed  over  the  spot  where  it  had  been,  and  thousands, 
gazing  on  the  vacant  scene,  who  had  never  thought  of 

504 


RESISTANCE 

Ferrer,  might  erect  a  monument  as  high  as  they  pleased. 
The  Cardinal's  pastoral  was  read  Sunday  after  Sun- 
day in  the  churches ;  and  it  was  in  the  churches  that  the 
patriotic  fervour  oftenest  broke  out.  Each  Sunday,  for 
instance,  at  St.  Jacques  sur  Coudenberg,  one  might  wit- 
ness a  beautiful  and  touching  scene,  if  one  chanced  to 
be  there  just  at  noon.  My  memory  goes  back  to  a  cold 
Sunday  in  January;  the  church  was  crowded,  the  por- 
tico was  filled  with  a  great  mass ;  men,  women  and  chil- 
dren standing  there,  leaning  forward,  straining  their 
ears  as  if  to  catch  some  sweet  and  significant  sound.  I 
stood  there  in  the  cold;  beggars  were  gathered  in  the 
Place  Royale,  awaiting  for  the  congregation  to  come 
out;  far  over  the  heads  of  the  worshippers  I  could  see 
the  priests  at  the  altar,  the  elevation  of  the  host,  and 
hear  the  sound  of  the  sacring  bells.  But  this  was  not 
why  all  the  people  were  there;  many  of  them  were  not 
Catholics.  For  still  they  leaned  forward.  .  .  .  Pres- 
ently the  mass  was  over  and  the  great  organ  of  the 
church  rolled  out  its  deep  tones,  and  all  those  faces  sud- 
denly lighted  up.  The  organ  was  playing  "Vers  I'Ave- 
nir,"  one  of  the  patriotic  hymns  of  Belgium.  The  faces 
were  expectant;  but  that  was  not  what  the  people  were 
waiting  for;  that  was  not  then  prohibited.  And  then, 
from  the  last  chord  of  "Vers  I'Avenir,"  the  organ  rolled 
very  softly  into  the  strains  of  "La  Brabangonne,"  the 
proscribed  Belgian  national  air,  and  an  expression  of 
delight,  of  some  sweet  and  comforting  reassurance,  in- 
stantly informed  all  those  eager  faces.  The  organ 
played  it  once  very  softly,  then  played  it  again  peal 
on  peal,  in  loud,  triumphant,  stately  tones.  Every  man 
had  uncovered;  I  glanced  at  all  those  faces,  rapt,  or 

505 


BELGIUM 

drawn  with  intense  emotion,  or  pathetic  with  quivering 
lips,  and  then  all  wet  with  a  sudden  rain  of  tears.  The 
strains  of  "La  Braban9onne"  ceased,  and  all  the  agony, 
all  the  sorrow,  all  the  patriotic  longing  and  the  strange 
nostalgia  from  which  they  suffered  was,  in  the  instant, 
an  agonizing  cry  of  "Vive  la  BelgiqueT 


LXVII 

AET  AND  WAJt 

I  HAVE  already  in  these  pages  spoken  of  the  phenom- 
enon that  occurred  when  the  Germans  ordered  down 
the  Belgian  flag;  everywhere  a  Belgian  flag  came  down 
an  American  flag  went  up.  It  was  a  beautiful  tribute 
to  our  ideals,  and  a  pretty  compliment  besides,  though 
not  without  its  embarrassments  and  its  dangers  even, 
for  while  the  Germans  said  nothing,  they  did  not  alto- 
gether like  it  and  when  their  quick  intuition  apprehend- 
ed this  the  Belgians  displayed  American  flags  every- 
where, more  and  more,  until  Brussels  looked  as  though 
it  had  been  decorated  for  the  Fourth  of  July.  Le 
Jeune,  the  barber,  said  to  me  one  day,  speaking  his 
French  slowly  with  the  savoury  Brussels  accent: 

"I  am  going  to  buy  me  an  American  flag." 

"Why?"  I  asked. 

"To  show  in  my  window,"  he  said. 

"And  why  do  you  want  to  show  the  American  flag  in 
your  window?" 

"Oh,"  he  said,  "to  rile  the  Germans."  {Pour  emheter 
les  Allemands.") 

Poor  Le  Jeune!  He  was  terrible  against  the  Ger- 
mans, yet  forever  hopeful;  he  always  had  the  most  im- 
portant information;  the  Cossacks  were  already  over- 
running Germany,  the  Allies  were  coming  in  the  spring; 
then  he  would  have  his  revenge. 

The  Belgians  at  that  time  had  rather  vague  notions 
of  American  holidays,  though  they  know  them  all  now, 

507 


BELGIUM 

and,  hearing  that  the  fourteenth  of  February  was  Val- 
entine's Day,  they  seemed  not  to  have  associated  it  with 
the  amiable  Saint  of  that  name,  but  to  have  concluded 
that  it  was  the  American  national  holiday.  And  so  on 
the  thirteenth,  the  city  blossomed  forth  in  our  colours, 
our  flag  was  displayed  in  the  windows  and  the  people 
wore  the  red,  white  and  blue;  and  another  shower  of 
cards  fluttered  down  at  the  Legation  door,  with  letters, 
and  flowers,  and  all  sorts  of  pretty  souvenirs,  poems, 
banners — Valentines  indeed ! 

And  then  they  learned  that  the  day  was  not  a  national 
holiday.  A  week  went  by,  and  one  morning,  to  my  sur- 
prise, the  Commissaire  de  Police  came  to  ask  what  ar- 
rangements we  desired  him  to  make  for  the  great  fes- 
tival on  Monday. 

"Ca  sera  quelque  chose  de  colossal^  he  exclaimed 
with  wide  eyes. 

I  looked  at  the  calendar ;  and  what  with  troubles  about 
the  Japanese  Legation,  and  the  English  colony,  and  the 
arrest  of  British  consuls,  and  the  status  of  our  own  con- 
suls, and  the  ravitaillement,  and  a  merchant  at  Liege 
who  had  ofl'ended  the  Germans  by  printing  a  card  with 
the  American  flag  and  the  Belgian  flag  side  by  side,  with 
some  appropriate  sentiment,  and  difficulties  incident  to 
Germany's  reply  to  the  President's  notes  about  the  sub- 
marine blockade,  and  all  the  nervous  feeling  in  the  air, 
I  had  forgotten  that  Monday  was  Washington's  Birth- 
day. 

It  was  all  very  touching,  and  yet  it  made  me  nervous 
for  I  feared  the  possible  effect  upon  the  situation,  al- 
ready made  difficult  enough  by  the  exchange  of  notes 
between  the  American  and  German  Governments,  and 
so  I  asked  Gibson  to  see  M.  Lemonnier  and  to  explain 

508 


ART  AND  WAR 

the  situation  to  him,  and  while  assuring  him  of  our 
entire  and  grateful  appreciation,  to  ask  that  there  be  no 
demonstration.  The  Burgomaster  made  a  public  an- 
nouncement of  my  desire,^  and  Washington's  Birthday 
dawned— and  almost  the  first  thing  I  saw  in  the  morn- 
ing was  the  Commissaire  de  Police,  in  white  gloves,  very 
fine,  with  his  sword,  in  front  of  the  Legation,  managing 
the  crowds  that  came  up  the  Rue  de  Treves.  They  made 
a  veritable  procession  on  our  side  of  the  street;  there 
were  scores  of  passers-by  gazing  on,  men  and  women 
waiting  patiently,  to  say  nothing  of  German  spies.  The 
little  leaf  in  the  door  kept  clicking  incessantly,  and  cards 
poured  in,  with  masses  of  flowers,  great  bouquets  knot- 
ted with  our  colours  and  the  Belgian  colours  entwined, 
and  letters  from  everybody,  even  from  the  little  children 
in  the  schools.  And  there  were  crowds  everywhere,  along 
the  boulevards  and  the  Avenue  Louise,  in  the  brilliant 

^  Pas  de  Manifestation 

M.  Maurice  Lemonnier,  ff.  de  Bourgmestre,  a  adresse  la  cir- 
culaire  suivante  aux  gardes  bourgeois  de  Bruxelles: 

Des  manifestations  en  I'honneur  des  Etats-Unis  d'Amerique 
se  preparent  pour  lundi  prochain,  22  fevrier,  jour  anniversaire 
de  la  naissance  de  Washington. 

"Cette  date  n'est  pas  celle  de  la  fete  nationale  des  Etats-Unis, 
qui  se  celebre  le  4  juillet. 

"M.  le  Ministre  des  Etats-Unis  est  tres  touche  des  sentiments 
de  reconnaissance  que  nos  compatriotes  expriment  pour  son  pays. 
II  demande  instamment  qu'aucune  manifestation  ne  soit  organisee 
dans  les  circonstances  actuelles  et  surtout  lundi  prochain:  ni  cartes 
de  visite,  ni  drapeaux,  ni  insigne  americain. 

"Je  suis  convaincu  que  nos  concitoyens  voudront  bien  deferer  a 
ce  desir,  qu'ils  ne  manifesteront  pas  personnellement  et  deconseil- 
leront  toute  manifestation.  lis  rendront  ainsi  service  aux  Etats- 
Unis  et  a  la  Belgique  elle-meme." 

La  Belgique,  February  22,  1915. 

509 


BELGIUM 

sun,  and  every  one  wearing  the  American  colours,  and 
little  children  playing  with  the  American  flags.  There 
were  German  sentinels  posted  about,  too,  but  that  may 
have  been  because  some  prince  was  passing  through,  or 
for  some  other  military  reason.  And  the  evening  came, 
and  the  day  ended  with  a  visit  from  Madame  Carton  de 
Wiart  and  a  band  of  children  dressed  as  Red  Indians, 
very  charming ! 

The  day,  as  we  heard  later,  in  the  slow  way  in  which 
news  got  about  Belgium,  had  not  passed  oif  so  quietly 
at  Liege.  A  woman,  who  it  seems  had  been  authorized 
by  the  Germans  to  do  so,  appeared  on  the  streets  sell- 
ing rosettes  of  the  American  colours  and  little  American 
flags,  and  was  met  by  a  non-commissioned  officer,  who 
tore  her  colours  from  her  and  threw  them  on  the  ground. 
And  immediately  there  was  almost  a  riot,  and  the  Ger- 
man troops  were  ordered  out.  They  cleared  the  streets, 
made  some  arrests  and  forbade  the  wearing  of  the 
American  colours.  Thereupon  the  Kommandant  tele- 
phoned to  Brussels  and  was  told  that  he  had  made  a  ter- 
rible "haffe^'  and  that  it  must  be  atoned  at  once.  Then 
the  Kommandant  sent  for  the  Burgomaster  who,  poor 
man,  went  to  the  Kommandantur  thinking  there  was 
more  trouble  in  store  for  him,  but  the  Kommandant  was 
exceptionally  polite,  was  delighted  to  see  him,  called  him 
"my  dear  Bourgomaster"  and,  in  a  word,  fawned  where 
he  had  frowned.  He  asked  the  Burgomaster  to  return 
the  letter  he  had  written  forbidding  the  wearing  of  the 
American  flag,  told  him  that  he  might  now  wear  it,  even 
pinned  one  on  the  breast  of  the  Burgomaster  himself, 
and  then  pinned  one  on  his  own  breast;  and  the  offi- 
cers went  out  and  invited  the  woman  who  sold  the  flags 

510 


ART  AND  WAR 

to  come  in,  and  all  members  of  the  German  staff 
adorned  themselves  with  the  American  colours. 

However,  a  new  decree  was  issued  that  evening  order- 
ing the  entire  civil  population  to  go  to  bed  at  7  o'clock. 

The  College  des  Bourgmestres  et  Echevins  of  Lou- 
vain  in  a  touching  resolution  declared  that : 

"In  the  new  quarters  of  the  city,  rising  from  its 
ruins,  three  streets  or  squares  will  receive  the  illustrious 
names  of  President  Wilson,  General  George  Washing- 
ton, and  of  the  American  Nation. 

"Not  wishing  to  allow  to  pass  any  occasion  for  mani- 
festing the  imperishable  gratitude  that  the  whole  popu- 
lation of  Louvain,  victim  of  an  atrocious  war,  holds  for 
the  generous  citizens  of  the  great  and  free  nation  of  the 
United  States  of  America;  to  those  who  contributed 
from  afar,  by  their  liberality,  to  relieve  the  frightful  mis- 
ery, and  to  those  who,  in  order  still  better  to  devote 
themselves  to  this  great  work  of  humanity,  have  not 
feared  to  expose  themselves  to  many  dangers,  and  who 
go  so  far  even  voluntarily  to  share  all  the  hardships  of 
the  destiny  of  a  people  martyred  for  their  loyalty  to 
their  word  of  honour,  decide  solemnly  to  associate  them- 
selves, in  the  name  of  the  ancient  city,  formerly  so  pros- 
perous and  overwhelmed  for  centuries  with  such  pre- 
cious liberties,  with  the  fete  that  the  noble  American 
nation  celebrates  on  the  22nd  February,  in  memory  of 
the  illustrious  founder  of  its  independence  and  its 
grandeur,  General  George  Washington,  who  so  justly 
merits  the  title  of  'Father  of  His  Country,'  the  most 
glorious  that  a  statesman  can  desire. 

"The  cradle  of  a  university  five  hundred  years  old,  and 
to-day  partly  ruined  like  herself,  the  town  of  Louvain 
can  not  let  pass  the  opportunity  to  associate  with  one  of 

511 


BELGIUM 

the  greatest  of  soldiers  the  name  of  the  learned  profes- 
sor, the  brilliancy  of  whose  teachings  and  the  great  value 
of  whose  political  works,  no  less  than  the  firmness  of 
his  character  and  the  admirable  dignity  of  his  life,  have 
borne  him  successively  to  the  Presidency  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Princeton,  to  the  governorship  of  the  State  of 
New  Jersey,  and  finally  to  the  Presidency  of  the  United 
States. 

"And  finally  to  perpetuate  for  future  generations  the 
testimony  of  its  sentiments  of  fervent  gratitude,  the 
College  des  Bourgmestres  et  Echevins  decides  to-day 
that  in  the  new  quarters  of  the  city,  raised  from  its 
ruins,  three  streets  or  squares  shall  receive  the  illustrious 
names  of  President  Wilson,  of  General  George  Wash- 
ington, and  of  the  American  Nation."  ^ 

^  "Voulant  ne  paisser  echapper  aucune  occasion  de  manifester  la 
reconnaissance  imperissable  que  toute  la  population  louvaniste,  vic- 
time  d'une  guerre  atroce,  gardera  aux  genereux  citoyens  de  la 
grande  et  libre  nation  des  Etats-Unis  d'Amerique;  a  ceux  qui  eon- 
tribuent  de  loin,  par  leurs  largesses,  a  soulager  son  affreuse  misere, 
et  a  ceux  qui,  pour  mieux  se  devouer  encore  a  cette  grande  oeuvre 
d'humanite,  n'ont  pas  craint  de  s'exposer  a  maints  dangers  et  vont 
meme  jusqu'a  partager  volontairement  toutes  les  rigeurs  du  sort 
d'un  peuple  martyrise  pour  la  fidelite  de  la  parole  d'honneur;  de- 
cide de  s'associer  solennellement,  au  nom  de  I'antique  cite,  autre- 
fois si  florissante  et  comblee  depuis  des  siecles  de  si  precieuses 
libertes,  a  la  fete  que  la  noble  Nation  Americaine  celebre  le  22 
fevrier,  en  memoire  de  I'illustre  fondateur  de  son  independance  et 
de  grandeur,  le  general  Georges  Washington,  qui  merita  si  juste- 
ment  le  titre  de  "Pere  de  sa  Patrie,"  le  plus  glorieux  qu'un  homme 
d'Etat  puisse  envier. 

"Berceau  d'une  universite  cinq  fois  seculaire  et  aujourd'hui  en 
partie  ruinee  comme  elle-meme,  la  ville  de  Louvain  ne  pent  man- 
quer  d'associer  au  souvenir  d'un  des  plus  grands  capitaines  le  nom 
du  savant  professeur  que  I'eclat  de  son  enseignement  et  la  haute 

512 


ART  AND  WAR 

There  was  a  graceful  and  a  charming  deed,  what  the 
French  would  call  a  heau  geste,  which  was  so  nearly 
coincidental  with  the  day  that  it  had  the  eif  ect  of  being 
a  part  of  the  celebration.  It  was  the  generous  and  spon- 
taneous impulse  of  Mr.  Charles  Leon  Cardon,  the  dis- 
tinguished amateur  and  connoisseur  of  art  in  Brussels. 
In  the  curious  old  house  where  he  lives  alone,  on  the 
Quai-au-Bois-a-bruler,  near  the  Marche-aux-Poissons, 
there  are  the  results  of  two  generations  of  art  collecting, 
for  Mr.  Cardon's  father  was  a  painter  and  a  collector 
before  him.  In  the  elder  Cardon's  day  the  Quai-au-Bois- 
a-bruler,  was  a  quay  indeed,  for  the  canal  was  there  in 
those  times,  with  its  panorama  of  life  and  colour,  its 
boats  with  the  softly  tinted  sails,  tempting  the  brush  at 
any  moment.  The  canal  has  been  filled  in  and  now  there 
is  only  a  wide  and  vacant  square,  with  no  scenes  such 
as  used  to  charm  the  eyes  of  Alfred  Stevens  and  Mes- 
sonnier,  and  the  painters  of  those  days.  They  were  all 
friends  of  the  elder  Cardon,  and  during  the  war  of  1870 
many  a  Paris  painter  found  a  pleasant  asylum  in  Brus- 
sels ;  some  of  them  lived  in  the  Cardon  home,  where  they 
could  sketch  all  day  if  they  wished,  those  red  and  green 
and  brown  sails  that  drifted  in  the  changing  light  along 

valeur  de  ses  etudes  politiques,  non  moins  que  la  fermete  de  son 
caractere  et  I'admirable  dignite  de  sa  vie,  porterent  successive- 
ment  a  la  presidence  de  I'Universite  de  Princeton,  au  gouvernement 
de  I'Etat  de  New-Jersey,  et  enfin  a  la  presidence  des  Etats-Unis. 

"Et  afin  de  perpetuer  pour  les  generations  futures  le  temoignage 
de  ces  sentiments  de  gratitude  ardente,  le  College  des  bourgmestres 
et  echevins  decide  aujourd'hui  meme  que,  dans  les  quartiers  nou- 
veaux  de  la  cite  relevee  de  ses  ruines,  trois  rues  ou  places  recev- 
ront  les  noms  ilustres  du  President  Wilson,  de  general  Georges 
Washington  et  de  la  Nation  Americaine." 

La  Belgique,  February  22,  1915. 
513 


BELGIUM 

the  smooth  waters  of  the  old  canal.  But  the  old  house 
within  remains  much  as  it  was,  save  for  the  treasures 
that  Mr.  Cardon  has  added  to  it.  One  enters  a  hall  hung 
in  tapestry  and  feels  at  once  the  atmosphere  of  the 
house,  the  furnishings  and  decorations  of  which  are  the 
result  of  two  lifetimes  of  devoted,  intelligent  and  artistic 
care.  It  is  filled,  not  crowded,  with  all  sorts  of  oh  jets 
d'art,  paintings,  bronzes,  sketches,  wood  carvings,  brass, 
old  furniture,  even  the  doors  and  wainscotings  and  ceil- 
ing having  their  individuality  and  their  relations  to  all 
the  rest,  and  without  confusion  of  styles.  There  is  a 
beautiful  spiral  staircase  that  leads  up  to  a  nobly  vault- 
ed room  where  there  are  canvases  of  Rubens,  of  van 
Dyck,  and  of  Rembrandt,  and  all  the  masters  of  the 
Flemish  school. 

It  was  out  of  all  these  treasures  that  Mr.  Cardon 
chose,  as  a  gift  to  express  the  gratitude  of  Belgium  to 
America,  van  Dyck's  sketch  of  his  great  painting  "Le 
Manteau  de  St  Martin"  It  is  one  of  the  finest  can- 
vases from  the  brush  of  the  master,  and  in  his  grand 
style,  glowing  with  all  the  colours  of  his  brilliant  palette. 
It  had  often  been  sought  after  by  American  connois- 
seurs, and  the  late  J.  Pierpont  Morgan  tried  to  per- 
suade Mr.  Cardon  to  part  with  it.  It  was  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  of  the  many  evidences  of  the  warmth  of 
the  Belgian  heart,  that  simple  little  ceremony  at  the  Le- 
gation when  Mr.  Cardon  came  to  present  it.  He  had 
asked  M.  Lemonnier,  the  Burgomaster,  to  make  the 
presentation  on  behalf  of  the  city  of  Brussels,  and  there 
in  the  presence  of  the  echevins  and  of  the  Legation  staff, 
M.  Lemonnier  made  a  graceful  little  speech,  in  which, 
in  thus  presenting  Mr.  Cardon's  gift,  he  compared 
America  to  St.  Mai  in,  and  his  own  city,  to  the  jay  in 

514 


ART  AND  WAR 

Le  Fontaine's  fable  of  "Le  Geai  qui  s'est  pare  des 
plumes  de  Paon."  Mr.  Cardon  read  a  letter  as  a  deed  of 
gift,  in  which  he  stipulated  that  the  painting  was  to  be 
hung  in  the  Art  Museum  of  my  own  city  of  Toledo. 

Mr.  Cardon  is  a  gentleman  of  taste  and  culture  and 
a  charming  companion.  We  used  to  go  now  and  then 
to  the  little  restaurant  "Le  Vieux  Sabot"  on  the  quay 
near  his  house,  he  and  Devreese  the  sculptor,  and  I,  and 
later  Alfred  Madoux,  the  editor  of  UEtoile  Beige,  who 
found  his  distraction  in  painting.  He  had  a  great  talent 
for  the  art  and  I  used  to  tell  him  that  it  was  too  bad 
that  he  had  not  been  obliged  to  make  his  living  by 
practicing  it.  I  came  eventually  to  know  nearly  all  the 
painters  and  sculptors  of  Brussels.  Victor  Gilsoul,  who 
with  his  vigorous  brush  and  broad  manner  has  rendered 
the  poetry  of  the  Flemish  scene  in  his  landscapes,  was 
in  his  studio  in  Paris  when  the  war  came  on  and  re- 
mained there  of  course;  Alfred  Bastien  was  in  the 
army,  and  Jean  Gauweloos  in  Holland.  Old  Jan  Stob- 
baerts,  in  some  ways  the  greatest  of  Belgian  painters, 
died  shortly  after  the  war  began;  and  Strobbant,  the 
oldest  of  them  all — he  had  seen  the  revolution  of  1830 — 
died  before  the  war  ended,  and  the  fate  that  had  over- 
whelmed his  country  was,  by  a  kindly  conspiracy  of  his 
friends,  mercifully  kept  from  him.  There  was  the  land- 
scape painter  Franz  Courtens,  the  dean  of  Belgian  ar- 
tists, and  Leon  Fredericq,  who  has  concentrated  in  his 
canvases  the  pathos  of  the  lives  of  the  peasants,  the  la- 
borers, and  all  the  poor.  There  was  Franz  van  Holder, 
the  portrait-painter,  in  whose  studio  deep  in  the  charm- 
ing garden  of  his  home,  I  spent  many  pleasant  hours. 
There  was  Ferdinand  KnopfF,  delicate,  enigmatic,  iur 
dubitably  of  the  school  of  the  pre-Raphaelites,  who  lived, 

515 


BELGIUM 

in  a  house  near  the  Bois  that  made  one  think  of  Burne- 
Jones.  And  there  was  Henri  Thomas,  with  his  pictures 
of  grisettes  and  cocottes,  painting  those  terrible  subjects 
of  Felicien  Rous  with  the  brush  of  Alfred  Stevens. 
There  were  Count  Jacques  de  Lalaing,  the  portraitist 
and  sculptor,  and  Thomas  Vin^otte,  the  sculptor,  who 
belongs  to  a  somewhat  earlier  day.  I  spent  pleasant 
moments  in  the  studio  of  Guillaume  Charlier  and  in 
the  studio  of  Charles  Samuel,  the  sculptor,  who  made 
the  de  Coster  memorial  with  its  figure  of  Eulenspiegel 
there  at  the  ponds  of  Ixelles.  Then  there  is  Marcette, 
who  has  done  the  Yser  and  the  Belgian  littoral  in  such 
broad,  dashing  style;  and  Geo.  Bernier,  the  animalist, 
and  van  Zevenbergen  and  Philippe  Swynkop,  and 
Henry  van  Haelen,  another  portrait-painter ;  and  Rene 
Janssens,  who  does  such  charming  interiors ;  and  Lucien 
Wolles,  whose  portraits  in  pastel  have  such  an  original 
and  delicate  charm,  Joseph  Fran9ois,  who  lived  and 
painted  in  the  Foret,  and  Firmin  Baes,  whose  pictures 
came  to  have  such  a  vogue  during  the  war,  and  Pinot, 
and  C.  J.  Watelet,  the  portraitist;  and  Madame  Cail- 
leux,  the  sculptor,  and  Jules  van  den  Leene,  and  Lefe- 
bvre,  and  Herman  Richir,  and  L.  Titz  and  Toussaint, 
A.  Crespin,  A.  Lynen,  Ramah,  Leempoels,  Taelemans, 
Omer  Coppens,  G.  M.  Stevens,  Laermans,  JNIathieu  and 
many  another.  I  cannot  give  them  all;  there  are  about 
two  thousand  painters  in  Brussels,  and  they  produce  38,- 
000  paintings  a  year — not  all  of  them,  perhaps,  great 
works  of  art ;  I  used  to  go  to  see  them,  or  some  of  them, 
in  their  studios  with  Gustave  van  Zype,  the  critic,  or 
with  Fernand  Wicheler,  the  playwright,  and  we  would 
go  now  and  then  to  see  the  paintings  that  old  Jan  Stob- 
baerts  at  his  death  had  left  in  the  studio  of  his  little 

516 


ART  AND  WAR 

house  in  the  Rue  Vifquin.  Stobbaerts  was  a  great 
painter,  and  an  interesting,  pungent  and  original  per- 
sonahty,  whose  genre  works,  for  colour  and  f acture,  will 
one  day  have  a  high  rank. 

He  was  born  in  Antwerp  and  had  studied  with  de 
Braeckelaer  under  the  great  Lys  there.  "II  y  avait  en 
Belgique"  he  used  to  say,  speaking  French  slowly  with 
his  broad  Flemish  accent,  "trois  'peintres,  Lys,  de 
Braeckelaer  et  moi.  Et  Lys  et  de  Braeckelaer  sont 
morts."  He  and  de  Braeckelaer,  early  in  the  sixties, 
had  revolted  from  the  schools  and  gone  into  the  open  air 
to  paint  and  for  the  last  forty  years  of  his  life  Stob- 
baerts sat  in  the  barn-yard  of  a  farm  at  Woluwe,  there 
on  the  outskirts  of  Brussels,  painting  cows  and  pigs 
and  the  mysterious  interiors  of  stables.  But  such  pigs! 
Such  cows !    Such  colours,  such  lights  and  shadows ! 

But  what  has  painting  to  do  with  the  German  occu- 
pation of  Belgium?  For  the  first  six  months  after  the 
war  none  of  the  artists  could  work;  their  spirits  were 
overwhelmed,  beaten  down  by  the  great  calamity  that 
had  befallen  their  land.  Then  slowly,  a  little  at  a  time, 
they  took  up  their  brushes  and  went  to  work  again; 
perhaps  it  was  the  spring  that  wrought  its  miracle  in 
their  souls,  and  then,  to  their  disappointment,  when  the 
spring  came  they  could  not  go  out  of  doors  in  its  pur- 
suit. For  the  Germans  would  allow  no  one  to  sketch  out 
of  doors  unless  he  had  a  written  permission  from  the 
Kommandantur,  and  that  the  painters  scorned  to  ask. 
What,  demand  of  a  German  Oberleutnant  permission 
to  sketch  those  lovely  and  familiar  scenes  of  their  own 
Brabant?  Not  they!  And  so  they  did  their  part,  spon- 
taneously, in  the  passive  resistance. 

One  painter  however,  a  Frenchman,  one  afternoon, 

517 


BELGIUM 

unable  to  resist  the  temptation  of  the  country,  went  out 
near  Uccle  and  set  up  his  easel.  A  German  sentinel  ap- 
peared, and  the  painter  thought  he  had  come  to  take  him 
to  the  Kommandantur.  But  the  sentinel  stood  silently 
by  and  over  his  shoulder  watched  him  paint ;  finally  the 
sentinel  sighed  and  said,  in  French: 

"I  should  like  to  see  the  interior  of  a  studio  once 
more." 

The  Frenchman  looked  up  suddenly. 

"I  am  a  painter  in  times  of  peace,"  the  German  said. 
And  ere  long  they  had  forgotten  that  they  were  ene- 
mies, and  were  mere  citizens  in  the  great  democracy  of 
art,  whose  influences,  because  they  are  not  of  this  but, 
of  another  and  a  better  world,  pervaded  the  hearts  of 
the  Frenchman  and  the  German ;  and  when  the  German 
said  that  he  would  be  off  duty  in  a  quarter  of  an  hour, 
and  that  he  should  like  to  visit  the  Frenchman's  studio, 
the  Frenchman  promised  to  wait.  They  went  and  talked 
a  long  time  there  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  studio,  lit- 
tered with  sketches  and  studies  and  easels  and  palettes, 
until  the  German  sighed  again  and  said  that  it  was  a 
shame  that  there  should  be  a  war  thus  to  derange  men's 
plans. 

"Yes,"  replied  the  Frenchman,  "the  Kaiser  has  much 
to  answer  for." 

And  then  instantly  they  were  back  in  this  world  once 
more,  and  because  they  were  in  this  world  they  began 
to  quarrel  and  to  squabble,  and  came  near  to  blows. 

Brussels,  contrary  to  her  experience  in  the  war  of 
1870,  was  no  refuge  for  painters  during  this  latest  war 
that  Germany  forced  on  the  world,  despite  what  the 
German  who  was  only  a  sentinel,  when  he  might  pos- 
sibly have  been  a  painter,  may  have  said.    There  were 

518 


ART  AND  WAR 

many  who  suffered,  though  in  their  pride  they  were 
ashamed  to  reveal  their  suffering,  though  there  was  a 
committee  of  which  M.  Khnopff  was  the  head,  to  seek 
them  out  and  discreetly  and,  without  any  one  knowing, 
to  help  them  over  the  road  that  had  grown  so  rough. 
It  was  not,  perhaps,  at  the  first,  the  very  poor  who 
suffered  most;  they  were  as  well  nourished,  as  they 
had  been  in  former  times,  perhaps  better,  or  at  least 
more  regularly  and  scientifically  nourished.  It  was  the 
middle  class — or  the  lower  middle  class,  if  one  wishes 
to  refine  upon  the  distinctions  we  make,  even  when  we 
try  not  to  make  them,  in  our  society.  It  was  the  clerks 
and  small  tradesmen  who  suffered  most,  and  those  of 
the  pauvres  honteucc,  who  were  required,  or  thought  they 
were  required,  to  keep  up  a  certain  appearance.  There 
were  many  obscure  and  touching  tragedies  from  beneath 
that  were  growing  shabby.  It  was  a  greater  mystery 
than  ever  as  to  how  the  other  half  lived,  and  as  savings 
and  economies  were  used,  the  situation  of  large  numbers 
became  desperate.  A  young  man  working  with  one  of 
the  departments  of  the  Comite  National,  one  day,  in  the 
midst  of  his  labours  for  the  very  organism  that  was 
directing  the  feeding  of  the  country,  fell  in  a  faint  from 
lack  of  food — a  condition  he  was  too  proud  to  confess 
to  those  who  so  gladly  would  have  helped  him;  he  was 
of  that  class  who  were  ashamed  to  go  into  the  soup  line. 
I  recall  a  pathetic  picture  drawn  for  me  by  an  employe 
of  a  large  company.  The  clerks  all  brought  their  lunches 
to  the  office  to  eat  at  noon,  and  they  had  been  used  to 
eat  there  in  company;  little  by  little,  one  after  another 
of  the  clerks  withdrew  at  noon,  and  ate  his  luncheon 
alone — it  was  too  meager  to  be  displayed  to  the  others. 
To  meet  this  most  delicate  situation,  two  charities  were 

519 


BELGIUM 

organized,  both  affiliated  with  the  Comite  National,  but 
receiving  private  donations  as  well;  the  one  of  them 
was  known  as  Les  Pauvres  Honteiuv,  the  other  as  L^ As- 
sistance Discrete/^  whose  motto  was  "^ Donne,  et  teds 
toi."  Many  persons  who  had  never  known  want,  and 
many  too  proud  to  expose  their  condition  to  the  world, 
would  have  perished  had  it  not  been  for  that  society,  so 
marvellously  organized. 

What  they  gave  was  given  discreetly;  no  one  ever 
knew. 

The  food  imported  by  the  C.R.B.— the  "Cey  Air 
Bay"  as  the  Belgians  pronounced  it — was  delivered  to 
the  C.N.  and  by  the  C.N.  through  its  provincial  and 
communal  committees,  sold  to  the  communes ;  and  if  the 
communes  had  not  the  means  to  buy  it,  the  C.N.  loaned 
them  the  money  to  do  so.  The  communes  sold  the 
food  through  communal  stores,  and  to  the  poor  who  had 
no  money  they  gave  food  gratis,  either  in  rations,  or  at 
the  soupes  communales.  Those  who  had  money,  there- 
fore, had  to  buy  their  food  as  in  ordinary  times,  and 
they  had  to  pay  a  profit  which  paid  for  the  food  con- 
sumed by  the  poor.  Naturally  there  were  always  cer- 
tain delicacies  of  indigenous  production,  which  the  rich 
could  procure  by  paying  large  prices,  and  there  were 
certain  articles  that  were  imported  from  Holland;  and 
so,  after  all,  it  was  the  poor,  who  were  at  a  disadvantage, 
and,  as  usual,  suffered  in  the  end. 


LXVIII 

IN  THE  CHATEAUX 

Brussels,  as  I  have  so  often  said,  had  changed;  from 
the  gayest  it  had  become  the  dullest,  saddest  city  imag- 
inable. The  Quartier  Leopold  was  as  though  deserted, 
and  the  boulevard  and  the  avenue  were  no  longer  bright 
with  the  daily  promenade.  Men  walked  there,  it  is  true, 
at  noon,  for  the  exercise,  or  to  pick  up  a  bit  of  gossip — 
if  possible  some  good  news,  some  hope — and  in  the  af- 
ternoon the  avenue  took  on  something  of  its  old  air ;  but 
it  could  never  be  happy  any  more.  I  went  walking 
there  one  day  with  a  friend ;  we  had  agreed  not  to  men- 
tion the  war,  but  we  had  hardly  gone  a  block  when  a 
woman  in  new  deep  mourning,  coming  out  of  a  house, 
met  some  friends  and  ran  toward  them  crying: 

''Mon  fits  est  mort!" 

They  were  always  receiving  such  news ;  it  was  almost 
the  only  news  they  could  receive. 

I  have  spoken  of  dining  out,  but  I  should  not  like 
thereby  to  give  the  impression  that  there  was  anything 
like  social  gaiety.  Brussels  was  in  mourning,  and  it  was 
only  occasionally  that  a  few  friends  were  asked  to  din- 
ner, and  then  most  informally.  Evening  dress  was  laid 
aside  for  the  war,  and  by  some  tacit,  common  under- 
standing men  paid  deference  to  conventions  only  by 
donning  dinner-jackets,  even  when  ladies  were  present. 
The  great  houses  were  closed,  and  when  one  went  to  see 
one's  friends  those  houses  always  gave  the  effect  of 
closed  shutters  and  drawn  blinds.  The  women  had  spon- 

521 


BELGIUM 

taneously  laid  aside  jewels  and  colours ;  they  were  always 
in  black,  and  most  of  them,  ere  long  in  deep  mourning. 
Many  persons,  indeed,  made  strange  vows — to  wear 
black,  not  to  drink  any  wine,  to  impose  this  or  that  little 
personal  sacrifice,  until  the  war  should  end.  Perhaps 
some  could  make  such  vows  because  of  a  belief  that  the 
war  would  not,  could  not,  last  very  long;  it  may  have 
been  because  they  could  not  endure  the  thought  of  it 
lasting  very  long.  And,  of  course,  the  want  of  food,  the 
restrictions  imposed,  and  what  amounted  to  rationing, 
imposed  an  economy,  so  that  in  general  dinners  were 
of  the  simplest;  and  finally  dinners  were  almost  never 
given,  for  it  was  too  difficult  to  go  about  at  night — there 
were  only  a  few  sorry  old  fiacres  left  in  all  Brussels. 
Then  the  few  who  entertained  their  friends  at  all — and 
most  of  the  houses  were  closed — asked  them  to  what 
they  called  a  "dejeuner  de  guerre'^ 

To  appreciate  the  contrast  wrought  by  all  the  changes 
of  the  war,  one  must  have  known  Brussels  in  the  days 
before  the  war.  In  the  population  there  was  a  fine 
joviality,  that  joyousness  that  came  down  from  the  days 
when  Rubens  and  Jordaens  and  Teniers  were  painting 
la  vie  plantureuse  of  Flanders.  This  same  gaiety  was 
reflected,  in  more  refined  forms,  in  the  lives  of  the  upper 
classes.  At  dinner  nine  or  ten  wines  were  served,  one 
with  each  course,  not  to  be  drunk  but  to  be  tasted; 
dcgu<ster.  The  guests  would  take  pride  in  guessing  at 
the  year  of  the  wine,  merely  by  iiihaling  the  bouquet ;  it 
was  none  of  your  vulgar  champagne,  which  the  nou- 
veaiKC  riches  "open,"  as  they  say,  but  rare  old  Bour- 
gogne.  INIen  were  proud  of  their  caves;  it  had  been  a 
custom  in  Belgiimi,  when  a  child  was  born,  to  lay  away 
a  barrel  or  several  barrels  of  the  vintage  of  that  year; 

522 


IN  THE  CHATEAUX 

it  would  be  left  to  mellow  through  the  years,  and  not 
be  decanted,  until  the  child  came  of  age — or  perhaps  not 
until  her  wedding  day,  if  the  child  were  a  girl;  then 
the  wine  would  crown  the  feast.  The  caves  were  handed 
down  in  families.  I  recall  a  dinner  in  a  chateau  down 
in  Hainaut,  where  the  guests  were  tasting  with  the  leis- 
urely, appraising  motions  of  the  connoisseur,  whose 
sense  of  taste  had  been  artistically  developed,  as  the 
sense  of  hearing  is  developed  to  music  or  the  sense  of 
sight  to  painting.  One  of  the  guests  seemed  to  remem- 
ber that  peculiar  vintage — it  was  of  some  famous  year — 
and  spoke  of  it  with  the  fear  that  not  much  more  of  it 
could  remain. 

"Alas,"  replied  the  master  of  the  house,  "not  much," 
and  then  turning  to  the  butler  he  said: 

'^Charles,  combien  nous  reste-t-il  de  ce  vin?" 

" Malheur eusement.  Monsieur"  replied  the  butler,  "il 
ne  nous  reste  que  dice  huit  miUe  houteilles." 

A  rich  man  at  Brussels  brought  a  suit  against  the 
tramway  company  because  its  trams  in  rumbling  by  his 
house,  he  said,  troubled  the  slumber  of  his  Bourgognes, 
and  unsettled  them. 

The  German  soldiers,  of  course,  when  they  came  into 
Belgium  did  not  allow  these  joys  to  go  untasted;  they 
did  not  diguster  the  Bourgognes,  they  guzzled  them, 
and  when  it  happened  to  be  a  new  wine,  the  Belgians 
relished  the  illness  and  the  pain  it  caused  them. 

The  Germans  emptied  the  cellars  of  M.  Hubert,  the 
Belgian  Minister  of  Industry  and  Labor,  when  they 
occupied  his  chateau  d'lrcholwelz-les-Ath. 

In  one  day  four  hundred  German  soldiers  consumed 
the  contents  of  forty-six  hundred  bottles  of  wine;  they 
then  mixed  the  other  wines  in  barrels  and  shipped  them 

523 


BELGIUM 

to  Germany.  The  Belgians  enjoy  telling  stories  of  the 
fearful  concoctions  German  officers  made  by  mixing 
various  wines  and  then  guzzling  them  in  their  formidable 
drinking  bouts.  There  were  always  tales  of  such  scenes ; 
and  tales,  too,  of  caves  that  had  been  bricked  up.  I 
know  of  a  man  whose  house  was  occupied  by  an  Ober- 
kommandant.  The  house  had  a  cellar  renowned 
throughout  the  whole  of  the  province,  and  the  neigh- 
bours saw  German  soldiers  going  out  from  it  day  after 
day  bearing  bottles.  The  man  complained  to  the  Ober- 
kommandant  who,  ordering  a  few  hundred  bottles  of 
vin  ordinaire  set  out  for  his  own  use,  sealed  up  the  cave. 
But  the  temptation  was  too  great  and,  no  doubt  in  his 
capacity  of  superman,  he  broke  his  own  seals,  and  the 
loot  of  the  cave  continued  until  a' protest  was  made  to 
General  von  Bissing,  who  reprimanded  the  Oberkom- 
mandant. 

The  dinners  during  the  war  were  always  sober  func- 
tions, and  afterwards,  before  the  fire  in  the  fumoir, 
while  the  ladies  were  knitting  those  things  that  ladies 
were  always  knitting  in  the  early  stages  of  the  war, 
the  talk  was  inevitablj^  of  the  conflict — usually  specula- 
tion as  to  how  long  it  would  last.  Every  one  would  give 
his  opinion,  speak  of  Kitchener's  dreadful  prophecy 
that  it  would  last  three  years — they  were  all  bitter 
against  Kitchener  for  saying  such  a  thing — or  of  the 
spring  drive  of  the  English.  Then  they  would  go  over 
all  the  gossip  of  the  day. 

"The  German  Governor  at  Ghent  has  ordered  the 
town  to  change  all  the  street  signs  from  French  to 
German,  at  a  cost  to  the  city  of  seven  thousand  francs!" 

"Dear  me!" 

"And  von  Bissing  is  out  with  a  new  'law'  that  pro- 

524 


IN  THE  CHATEAUX 

vides  that  any  business  found  to  be  adverse  to  the  inter- 
ests of  Germany  will  be  taken  over  by  the  Germans." 

"And  it  is  defendu  to  sing  or  to  play  the  'Marseil- 
laise'— two  years'  imprisonment!" 

"Then  may  one  whistle  it?"  said  tl^  witty  Baron, 
and  they  would  try  to  laugh. 

"And  did  you  know  that  Reseis — (the  Baron  Reseis 
was  the  Italian  Charge — went  to  German  headquar- 
ters and  demanded  an  interview  with  von  der  Lancken, 
and  was  refused?" 

"That  means  that  Italy  is  going  to  declare  war!" 

"And  Roumania  is  going  to  enter  the  dance,  because 
Mitilineu — (The  Roumanian  Charge) — has  received 
orders  to  hold  himself  in  readiness." 

A  French  paper,  or  a  copy  of  la  Revue  des  Detuc 
Mondes,  was  a  godsend.  Any  one  with  a  bit  of  news, 
or  even  a  rumour,  was  welcome;  and  any  one  with  a 
piece  of  good  news,  in  a  town  and  time  when  good  news 
never  came,  or  never  stayed  long  if  it  did  come,  was  as- 
sured of  a  popularity  all  evening  long.  And  any  one 
from  the  country  was  welcome  because  that  meant  new 
incidents,  for  it  was  in  the  country,  in  lonely  chateaux 
where  German  officers  quartered  themselves,  that  la 
mentalite  allemande  was  best  exemplified.  I  knew  a 
charming  old  dowager  whom  no  German  general  could 
daunt.  One  of  them  with  his  staff  came  to  lodge  in  her 
chateau ;  they  remained  several  weeks  and  when  they  left 
the  General  asked  the  maitre  d'hotel  to  request  the 
Douairiere  to  be  good  enough  to  receive  him  for  a  mo- 
ment. The  old  grande  dame  in  her  white  hair  came 
slowly  down  the  stairs,  and,  pausing  at  the  bottom,  stood 
there  with  folded  hands,  and  in  her  mild  voice  asked 
what  he  wished  of  her.    The  General  said  that  during 

525 


BELGIUM 

their  stay  there  they  had  been  so  kindly  treated  that  he 
wished  to  thank  her  for  himself  and  for  his  staff.  The 
old  lady  looked  at  him  a  moment  and  then  said  calmly : 

''Vous  riavez  pas  a  me  remercier;  je  ne  vous  avais  pas 
invite/' 

Madame  W ,  having  been  at  her  chateau  near 

JMons  with  her  husband,  who  was  ill,  on  her  return  to 
town  told  this  story :  The  Germans  came  in  numbers  to 
be  quartered  in  the  chateau ;  she  protested  and  said  that 
her  husband  was  very  ill  and  confined  to  his  bed  with 
heart  disease — his  brother  had  dropped  dead  from  the 

same  cause  in  the  summer,  and  W himself  did  not 

know  that  the  land  had  been  invaded.  She  was  ready 
to  let  the  Germans  lodge  in  her  house,  but  she  asked 
that  they  respect  her  husband's  apartments.  The  of- 
ficer said  that  it  would  be  necessary  to  examine  W . 

Then  she  asked  to  be  allowed  to  inform  him  gently  and 
to  prepare  him  for  the  ordeal,  so  that  he  would  not  suf- 
fer from  the  effects,  but  no;  a  military  doctor  with  a 
squad  of  soldiers  tramped  heavily  down  the  corridor, 
burst  open  the  door  of  the  sick-room;  the  doctor  threw 

back   the   bed    clothes,    opened   poor   W 's    shirt, 

clapped  a  stethoscope  over  his  heart,  listened,  and  ex- 
claimed "Ganz  schlecht!  Ganz  schlechtT 

One  of  the  B 's  had  received  a  visit  at  his  cha- 
teau  from  the  Germans,   headed  by  Prince   H . 

The  soldiers  were  ransacking  the  palace,  and  the  Prince 
told  her  to  place  the  oh  jets  d'art  that  she  held  most  dear 
in  a  certain  cabinet  and  that  thus  they  would  be  safe. 
She  did  this,  and  when  she  had  finished,  having  selected 
the  articles  she  prized  most,  they  bore  the  cabinet  away 
with  all  its  contents! 

Madame  Q described  to  me  the  pillaging  of 

526 


IN  THE  CHATEAUX 

her  chateau ;  the  whole  place  was  in  a  shocking  condition, 
bestial  outrages  had  been  committed,  the  piano  scribbled 
over  with  chalk — Deutschland  ilber  alles,  besides  phrases 

that  one  does  not  repeat.    And  S told  me  similar 

incidents  that  had  happened  to  his  chateau  near  Ter- 
vueren.  It  had  been  occupied  from  the  beginning; 
60,000  bottles  of  wine  had  been  taken,  and  those  that 
they — the  Germans;  when  one  says  "they"  in  Belgium 
it  means  the  Germans — could  not  drink  they  had  broken 
and  emptied  of  their  wine.  He  had  spoken  of  the  fear 
of  the  soldiers,  how  they  would  skulk  behind  trees  with 
gims,  fearing  to  enter  the  houses,  and  how  at  night  they 
would  not  go  out  nor  sleep  in  rooms  alone,  so  that  when 
his  brother  said: 

"Are  you  not  afraid  to  go  to  sleep  at  night?"  he  could 
answer : 

"No,  that  is  the  safest  time;  they  are  afraid  to  go  out 
at  night." 

Mme.  R had  been  ordered  to  be  in  her  chateau 

in  the  country  on  a  certain  day  to  receive  a  visit  from 
the  Governor  General,  who  was  looking  for  a  house  for 
the  summer;  the  poor  woman  was  afraid  to  go  and  more 
afraid  not  to  go.  She  had  been  to  the  Pass-Zentrale  to 
secure  permission  to  go  to  Holland,  and  there  had  talked 
with  Major  von  der  ^I ,  who  said  that  the  Ger- 
man officers  whom  she  had  known  before  the  war  com- 
plained that  she  did  not  notice  them  or  recognize  them 
in  the  streets,  and  then  he  asked  her  why  it  was  that 
the  German  officers  were  not  liked  in  Brussels! 

To  be  seen  speaking  to  a  German  was  enough  to  send 
a  Belgian  to  Coventry ;  and  when  officers  went  along  the 
boulevards  in  their  striking  colours,  and  their  grey  cloaks 
bellying  in  the  wind,  those  who  passed  them  affected 

527 


BELGIUM 

not  to  see.  The  Nonce  was  obliged  to  insert  in  la  Bel- 
gique,  perhaps  the  principal  of  the  subsidized  newspa- 
pers that  had  come  into  existence — journaux  emhoches, 
the  Belgians  called  them — a  note  officially  denying  that 
he  had  given  a  dinner  to  the  German  authorities  at  the 
Nonciature.^ 

The  attitude  of  the  Belgians  conveyed  in  itself  a  re- 
proach under  which  the  Germans  seemed  to  smart.  With 
their  war  at  that  time  "fresh  and  joyous,"  they  did  not 
like  the  assumption  of  mourning,  the  absence  of  all  life 
and  gaiety.  They  displayed,  as  a  nation,  every  one  of 
the  characteristics  of  the  parvenu;  they  had  expected 
not  only  to  impress,  but  to  astonish  and  dumbfound  the 
world  when  they  overran  it — expected  to  be  the  objects 
of  gaping  wonder  and  awe;  and  it  piqued  them  to  find 
themselves  rated  pretty  generally  at  their  real  merit. 

The  theatres  were  all  closed  and  declined  to  open; 
Belgian  actors  refused  to  appear ;  Belgian  singers  would 
not  sing;  Belgian  playwrights  would  not  permit  the 

^  "Depuis  quelque  temps  circulent  dans  le  public  et  dans  la 
presse  certains  bruits  tendancieux  relativement  a  I'attitude  de  la 
Nonciature  en   Belgique  vis-a-vis  de  I'autorite  occupante. 

"On  pretend,  entre  autres,  que  le  Nonce  aurait  donne  un  diner 
aux  autorites  allemandes,  et  cela  a  1' Hotel  de  la  Nonciature. 

"La  Nonciature  Apostolique  tient  a  opposer  a  cette  nouvelle  le 
dementi  le  plus  formel." 

"For  some  time  there  have  been  circulating  among  the  people 
and  in  the  Press  certain  rumours  relating  to  the  attitude  of  the 
Nonciature  in  Belgium  toward  the  occupying  authority. 

"They  say,  among  other  things,  that  the  Nuncio  has  given  a  din- 
ner to  the  German  authorities,  and  that  in  the  house  itself  of  the 
Nonciature. 

"The  Apostolic  Nonciature  categorically  denies  this  rumour." 

528 


IN  THE  CHATEAUX 

presentation  of  their  plays.  The  usual  carnival  at  Mardi 
Gras,  with  the  great  mask-ball  at  the  royal  theatre  of 
la  Monnaie,  had  been  forbidden  by  the  city  authorities ; 
la  Monnaie  had  been  dark  all  winter  long.  Then  one 
day,  among  the  usual  rumours,  there  was  one  to  the 
effect  that  a  concert  was  to  be  given  at  the  Opera;  it 
proved  to  be  true,  and  a  few  days  later  great  posters 
were  on  the  walls  announcing  it.  Artists  were  coming 
from  Germany,  with  an  orchestra  and  a  chorus,  350 
persons  in  all;  they  were  to  give  the  "Leonora"  overture 
and  an  act  from  Die  Meister singer.  And  Brussels  loved 
music  sol    The  question  was,  would  any  one  go? 

The  day  came,  and  the  town  was  in  excitement.  There 
was  even  a  rumour  that  the  German  Kaiser  was  to  be  in 
the  royal  box.  But  by  universal  tacit  consent  it  was 
made  a  point  of  honour  not  to  go,  a  sign  of  patriotism — 
that  touching  patriotism  that  was  mounting  in  intensi* 
fied  resistance.  It  was  said  that  the  only  Belgian  who 
would  be  present  was  an  old  functionary  of  the  Mon- 
naie, who  for  nearly  forty  years  had  been  at  the  door, 
and  knew  every  one  in  Brussels.  He  was  the  only  one 
of  all  the  employees  who  would  consent  to  work  that 
night,  and  he  would  make  a  report  afterwards  on  the 
attendance.  I  was  walking  back  from  Devreese's  stu- 
dio. The  red  sun,  sinking  behind  the  city,  reminded  me 
that  we  had  German  time,  and  that  the  sun  was  setting 
an  hour  too  soon ;  I  would  have  time  to  take  a  turn  down 
by  the  Monnaie.  I  went  through  the  narrow,  twisting 
streets,  idling  along,  feeling  as  I  always  did  the  charm 
of  the  old  city.  Crowds  were  gathered,  and  finally,  at 
the  Rue  du  Fosse  aux  Loups,  turning  into  the  Rue  Leo- 
pold, three  policemen  stopped  me. 

The  street  was  barred,  and  a  cordon  of  soldiers  was 

529 


BELGIUM 

around  the  theatre;  I  had  to  make  a  detour.  The  Rue 
Neuve  was  impassable,  so  great  was  the  crowd ;  I  had  to 
go  down  then  to  the  Boulevard  Anspach  and  around 
that  way.  Everywhere  there  were  the  immense  crowds 
waiting,  not  to  go  to  the  concert,  but  to  see  who  did 
go !  The  atmosphere  seemed  charged  with  trouble.  But 
then  the  Germans  seemed  to  like  trouble.  .  .  . 

At  times  it  seemed  as  if  one  could  no  longer  endure  it, 
that  one  must  get  out  of  the  suffocating  atmosphere. 
As  I  passed  the  Park,  the  gates  of  which  were  barred 
and  locked,  with  sentinels  on  guard,  a  bird  was  singing 
in  the  twilight,  like  the  darkling  thrush  in  Mr.  Thomas 
Hardy's  poem: 

So  little  cause  for  carolling 

Of  such  ecstatic  sound 
Was  written  on  terrestrial  things 

Afar  or  nigh  around. 
That  I  could  think  there  trembled  through 

His  happy  good-night  air 
Some  blessed  hope,  whereof  he  knew 
And  I  was  unaware. 

I  went  on  around  by  the  Palace  and  past  the  Minis- 
try of  Industry,  where  von  der  Lancken  had  the  enor- 
mous German  imperial  flag  with  the  black  eagle  float- 
ing from  the  stafl"  over  his  window,  and  in  the  sunset 
there  were  thousands  and  thousands  of  starlings,  a  great 
aerial  army  of  them,  spread  out  like  an  enormous  fan; 
they  rose  and  fell  in  graceful  manoeuvres,  and  whirred 
and  turned  round  and  round  over  the  Pare.  I  was  glad 
that  there  were  no  sentinels  for  the  starlings;  they 
could  fly  up  and  away.  .  .  . 

They  were  the  only  beings  who  could  fly  away,  though 
there  were  always  stories  of  boys  and  men  who  had 

530 


IN  THE  CHATEAUX 

succeeded  in  crossing  the  frontier,  and  stories  of  boys 
and  men  who  had  been  shot  by  sentinels  or  killed  by  the 
highly  charged  electric  wires  in  trying  to  do  so.  Every 
mother  in  Brussels  with  a  son  growing  up  was  dreading 
the  day  when  he  would  be  big  enough  to  serve,  dreading 
the  night  when  he  would  go  away.  Besides  these  lads, 
whose  patriotism  was  so  beautiful,  there  were  soldiers 
of  other  armies ;  after  the  battles  of  August  near  Mons, 
hundreds  of  English  and  French  soldiers  were  left  be- 
hind in  the  retreat,  and  all  winter  they  hid  in  the  woods, 
enduring  untold  miseries,  and  now  they  were  escaping 
too;  one  man  was  said  to  have  shown  two  hundred  the 
way  across  the  frontier  into  Holland. 

There  was  another  movement,  coming  in  the  oppo- 
site direction,  groups  of  men  in  utter  misery — the  Bel- 
gian civilian  prisoners  who,  having  been  sent  to  prison 
camps  in  Germany  during  the  atrocities,  were  now  be- 
ing sent  back.  They  came,  pale  and  spectral  figures, 
wasted  beyond  recognition,  having  subsisted  in  those 
German  camps  on  beet  soup — tatterdemalions  in  the 
rags  of  the  summer  garments  they  had  worn  when  they 
were  herded  into  cattle-cars  for  their  exile  in  that  terri- 
ble August,  and,  as  a  last  indignity,  with  one  side  of 
their  faces  shaven,  the  other  heavily  bearded. 


LXIX 

VEXATIONS 

There  was  but  one  Belgian  at  the  concert  at  the 
Monnaie  that  evening,  though  there  were  enough  Ger- 
mans then  in  town  to  fill  the  theatre;  and  if  the  Kaiser 
was  not  present  the  Governor-General  was  there  to 
represent  him,  surrounded  by. a  brilliant  staff,  and  all 
the  boxes  were  filled  with  officers.  Le  Jeune,  the  bar- 
ber, who  had  an  all-wise  air  of  knowing  everything,  con- 
fided to  me  that  they  had  committed  all  kinds  of  inde- 
cencies; and  though  in  this,  of  course,  he  was  mistaken, 
he  did  represent  the  attitude  of  his  class  toward  the 
auditors  of  that  music,  which  a  year  before  all  Brussels 
would  have  crowded  to  hear.  The  one  Belgian  who  was 
present  was  a  professor — curiously  enough  of  moral 
philosophy,  a  great  lover  of  music,  who  had  perhaps 
forgetfully  gone  that  night,  and  the  day  after  paid  for 
his  thoughtlessness,  if  it  were  that,  by  having  his  posi- 
tion in  a  school  instantly  taken  from  him  by  the  di- 
rectors. 

It  was  about  that  time  that  M.  Lemonnier,  the  acting 
Burgomaster,  was  having  some  of  that  trouble  which 
was  so  constantly  his  in  the  hard  position  he  had  to  fill. 
He  filled  it  gallantly,  simply  and  well,  even  if  there  were 
always  many  to  criticize — those,  numerous  in  all  human 
agglomerations,  who  feel  themselves  better  qualified  to 
discharge  public  functions  than  those  invested  with 
them.  It  was  difficult  enough  of  itself  to  be  the  suc- 
cessor of  M.  Max,  whose  popularity  grew  each  day  of 

532 


VEXATIONS 

his  absence,  and  at  the  same  time  successfully  to  resist 
the  incessant  encroachments  of  the  Germans  and  to  as- 
sure the  continuance  of  that  independent  communal  life 
which  was  the  pride  of  every  Belgian.  But  M.  Lemon- 
nier  bore  that  unequal  burden  patiently  and  bravely — 
bore  it  for  two  years  and  a  half,  until,  broken  in  health, 
he  too  joined  that  patriotic  colony  in  German  prisons. 

The  trouble  M.  Lemonnier  was  having  just  then  had 
no  relation  to  the  concert ;  it  concerned  the  Belgian 
emigres.  The  German  authorities  had  imposed  a  special 
tax  on  all  the  Belgian  citizens  who  had  left  the  country, 
and  the  college  of  echevins  had  protested  against  the 
measure.  There  was  always  in  Belgium  much  talk  and 
some  criticism  of  those  who  had  gone  to  England — the 
francs- fileurs,  some  one  called  them.  The  Governor- 
General  had  just  issued  an  order  that  they  were  to  re- 
turn or  be  heavily  taxed. 

The  Germans,  of  course,  would  not  yield,  and  had  or- 
dered the  Burgomaster  to  prepare  and  to  deliver  to  them 
a  list  of  all  the  absent,  which  he  had  refused  to  do.'^ 

^The  Burgomaster's  letter,  refusing  to  give  the  names  of  the 
absent : 

City  of  Brussels,  Office  of  the  Mayor,  U.2005. 

Brussels,  March  10th,  1915. 
Monsieur  le  Directeur, 

By  its  letter  of  January  29th,  1915,  the  College  of  Aldermen 
of  Brussels,  in  agreement  with  the  Common  Council  and  the  ad- 
ministrations of  the  surrounding  towns,  protested  to  the  German 
Governor-General  against  the  establishment  of  a  tax  on  the  absent. 

The  German  authorities  replied  to  this  protestation  on  the 
20th  of  February  by  a  letter  which  has  not  convinced  us. 

We  continue  to  believe  that  such  a  law  is  against  the  law  of 
Belgium  and  the  Hague  Convention  and  the  agreements  made  with 
the  City  of  Brussels  and  the  provinces. 

533 


BELGIUM 

Then  too,  the  question  of  the  salute  to  be  given  by  the 
policemen  to  the  German  officers  had  come  up  again. 
In  ordinary  times  the  Belgian  policemen  do  not  salute 
anybody  except  their  own  superior  officers,  not  even  the 
Burgomaster,  though  during  the  occupation  they  always 
saluted  the  American  flag  when  it  passed  by.  On  the 
demand  of  the  German  authorities,  as  will  be  remem- 
bered, instructions  had  been  given  to  them  to  salute  Ger- 

If  taxes  are  deemed  necessary  to  furnish  means  for  the  admin- 
istration of  the  territory,  Article  48  of  the  Hague  Convention 
stipulates  that  the  occupying  power  must  impose  them  as  much 
as  possible  according  to  the  rules  of  assessment  and  the  exist- 
ing apportionment. 

It  does  not  appear  to  us  that  the  German  authorities  have  been 
so  situated  that  they  could  not  understand  the  existing  rules  of 
taxation  and  apportionment  which  apply  to  them. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  this  tax  is  a  measure  of  obstinacy,  hav- 
ing for  its  object  the  punishment  of  Belgian  citizens  who  went 
away,  which  they  had  the  undeniable  right  to  do,  it  is  a  restraint 
upon  individual  liberty,  and  we  can  not  cooperate  in  its  execution. 

And,  moreover,  since  this  concerns  a  tax  on  the  State,  we 
consider  that  it  does  not  come  within  the  province  of  the  Cities 
to  participate  in  the  negotiations  relative  to  its  collection. 

Under  these  circumstances  we  regret  that  we  are  not  able  to 
assist  in  the  preparation  of  the  lists,  of  which  we  return  to  you 
the  blank  forms. 

This  letter  is  addressed  in  the  name  of  the  districts  making 
up  the  City  of  Brussels. 

Please  accept.  Monsieur  le  Directeur,  the  assurance  of  our  high 
consideration. 

Maurice  Lemonnier, 
Alderman,    Acting    Burgomaster. 

A  Monsieur  Maurice  Maloens, 
Directeur  des  Contributions, 
Entrepot  de  Bruxelles. 

534 


VEXATIONS 

man  officers,  but  the  Germans  complained  that  when 
they  did  salute,  they  did  not  salute  properly — the  hand 
was  not  held  in  the  correct  position,  or  something  of  the 
sort ;  the  policemen  did  not  understand  the  technique  of 
the  matter  at  all. 

Life  indeed  was  made  up  of  such  vexations,  whether 
one  was  Burgomaster  or  agent  de  police  or  minister,  and 
if  one  were  minister  one  could  scarcely  go  to  see  a  friend 
without  being  called  out  from  one  salon,  where,  there 
was  a  discussion  of  the  troubles  of  the  day  before  or 
those  that  were  anticipated  for  the  morrow,  into  another 
to  hear  the  latest  trouble  of  that  very  moment.  It  was 
usually  some  one  who  had  just  been  arrested,  and 
sought  aid  before  he  could  be  taken  off  to  Germany. 
Perhaps  it  was  a  banker,  as  in  the  case  of  M.  Gold- 
schmidt,  who  was  sent  away  without  trial  or  any  judg- 
ment— other  than  that  the  secret  police  pronounced  be- 
fore they  seized  him;  or  perhaps  it  was  only  the  boy 
from  Dinant  who  had  his  foot  shot  off  during  the  hor- 
rors there,  and  had  been  arrested  for  telling  what  he 
had  seen. 

There  was  little,  and  in  most  cases  nothing,  that  one 
could  do,  but  in  the  endless  succession  of  tragedies  there 
was  a  constant  call  on  the  sympathy  that  I  should  like 
to  think  was  not  often  failing.  There  were  always  deli- 
cate ladies  whose  country  homes  had  been  occupied; 
their  stories  were  chiefly  a  repetition  of  the  same  boor- 
ishness  or  nastiness,  but  there  was  one  about  that  time 
whose  husband  had  been  arrested  by  the  Germans  for 
some  petty  offense,  and  taken  away;  after  many  days  of 
ignorance  and  uncertainty,  they  reported  to  her  that  he 
had  committed  suicide  in  prison,  which  she  did  not  be- 
lieve, but  suspected  a  darker  tragedy. 

535 


BELGIUM 

There  was,  too,  the  Chevalier  von  Z standing 

there  in  the  hall  one  morning,  just  released  from  the 
Kommandantur,  where  he  had  served  a  six  weeks'  sen- 
tence for  having  written  letters  to  some  one  at  Havre. 
He  had  come  to  thank  me  for  the  effort  I  had  made  in 
conjunction  with  Villalobar  to  have  him  released.  The 
poor  little  Chevalier  was  much  shaken  by  his  experience, 
and  he  had  had,  from  all  accounts,  a  terrible  time.  He 
was  confined  in  a  room  where  there  were  no  comforts  or 
conveniences,  with  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men,  many 
of  them  with  loathsome  diseases.  After  some  weeks  of 
this  he  complained,  and  was  then  confined  with  those 
who  had  what  are  called  "nervous  diseases"  which  he 
said  meant  that  they  were  half  mad ;  and  that  was  even 
worse,  so  that  he  nearly  went  mad  himself. 
^^Et  towt  da''  he  said,  "pour  une  betiss." 
I  was  very  sorry  for  the  poor  little  fellow.  The  Kom- 
mandantur was  a  terrible  place,  and  long  years  will  not 
suffice  to  assemble  and  recount  all  its  horrors  and  injus- 
tices ;  some  of  them  indeed  will  never  be  told,  but  be  lost 
in  that  dark  oblivion  where  it  sent  so  many  scores  and 
hundreds  of  its  victims. 


LXX 

THE  RAVITAILLEMENT 

It  would  be  an  ungrateful  task,  savouring  no  doubt 
of  querulousness,  to  attempt  to  recount  all  the  difficulties 
and  all  the  obstacles  that  the  great  work  of  relief  en- 
countered, then  and  always,  for  the  trouble  was  never  at 
an  end ;  no  sooner  was  one  problem  solved,  one  difficulty 
overcome,  one  complication  untangled,  than  a  new  one 
promptly  took  its  place.  It  could  not,  of  course,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  have  been  otherwise.  To  attempt  to 
rear  such  a  structure  when  the  world  was  in  chaos  all 
around,  with  all  its  machinery  and  all  its  functions  quite 
broken  down,  was  a  piece  of  temerity  that  no  one  but  a 
set  of  God's  own  fools  would  ever  have  undertaken,  and 
the  atmosphere  then  prevailing  in  the  world,  the  hatred, 
the  suspicion  that  had  darkened  men's  minds  every- 
where, produced  such  effects  as  woidd  have  made  any 
others  despair.  Captain  Lucey,  as  I  have  said,  was  the 
first  director  of  the  C.  R.  B.  after  its  more  formal  or- 
ganization. He  had  accepted  the  position  with  some 
reluctance,  for  his  own  affairs  at  home,  neglected  while 
he  had  been  working  so  untiringly  at  Rotterdam,  were 
calling  to  him  to  return  to  America,  but  at  the  insistence 
of  Mr.  Hoover  and  of  myself — Captain  Lucey  and  I 
found  that  we  had  many  old  friends  in  common  in  Ohio 
— ^he  consented  to  remain  long  enough  to  effect  an 
organization. 

The  morning  when  he  at  last  consented  to  make  this 
additional  sacrifice  remains  very  vivid  in  my  memory, 

537 


BELGIUM 

not  only  because  of  the  strong  personality  of  Captain 
Lucey  himself,  but  because  of  what  I  could  be  proud  of 
as  his  American  way  of  going  at  the  task. 

"Very  well,"  he  said,  rising  to  his  splendid  height  of 
six  feet.  "I'm  going  now;  one  week  from  to-morrow  I 
shall  return  and  report  to  you  that  the  organization  is 
accomplished." 

Comforting  words,  after  all  the  difficulties  and  end- 
less debates!  The  Captain  went  and  I  did  not  see  him 
for  a  week.  He  cut  all  the  tangled  knots  at  once,  and  on 
the  day  and  at  the  hour  he  had  named,  he  returned,  and 
said: 

"I've  come  to  report  that  the  organization  is  com- 
plete; will  you  come  and  look  it  over?" 

Captain  Lucey  had  installed  the  organization  of  the 
C.  R.  B.  in  its  offices  in  the  Rue  des  Colonies;  it  might 
have  been  the  general  offices  of  a  transcontinental  rail- 
way, with  its  departments,  and  sub-departments,  its  di- 
rectors, and  chiefs,  and  corps  of  clerks ;  it  had  the  aspect 
of  American  corporate  organization  in  most  ways.  Cap- 
tain Lucey  laid  the  foundations  of  what  became  an  al- 
most perfect  organization,  and,  setting  the  machinery 
at  work,  went  back,  to  our  great  regret,  to  America. 
He  was  succeeded  by  Mr.  A.  N.  Connett,  another  one 
of  those  splendid  executives  whom  Mr.  Hoover  seemed 
to  have  a  genius  for  discovering. 

The  new  Govenor-General  had  not  only  reaffirmed 
all  the  assurances  given  by  von  der  Goltz  Pasha,  but 
when  Baron  von  der  Lancken  returned  from  a  visit  to 
Berlin  he  brought  welcome  news.  On  the  day  of  his 
return  he  told  me  that  the  Governor- General  would  en- 
large the  assurances  given  by  his  predecessor.  Not  only 
would  none  of  the  imported  foodstuffs  be  seized,  but  no 

538 


THE  RAVITAILLEMENT 

foodstuffs  of  any  kind  that  would  have  to  be  replaced 
by  imports  would  be  requisitioned,  even  for  their  horses 
and  cattle.  The  Governor-General  had  already  issued 
orders  to  that  effect ;  he  was  ready  to  put  it  all  in  writ- 
ing for  us,  and  the  Baron  concluded,  spreading  his  hands 
wide  in  a  gesture  that  seemed  to  offer  every  facility : 

"You  may  establish  any  sort  of  control  you  desire." 

I  said,  of  course,  that  the  word  of  the  Governor-Gen- 
eral would  be  sufficient,  without  any  written  engage- 
ment. 

The  new  assurances  came  at  a  fortunate  moment,  for 
there  was  criticism  of  the  work  outside,  and  constantly 
reiterated  statements  that  the  Germans  were  seizing  all 
the  food  brought  in,  and  that  the  work  ought  to  be 
stopped.  Over  in  London,  as  the  telegraph  was  con- 
stantly informing  us,  Mr.  Hoover  was  having  as  great 
difficulties  as  we  were  in  Brussels.  There  were  those 
who  thought  that  it  was  inexpedient  to  feed  the  starving 
Belgians,  because  if  they  were  allowed  to  go  hungry 
long  enough  they  would  revolt  against  the  Germans,  and 
they  were  saying  that  it  was  an  unneutral  act  on  Amer- 
ica's part  to  feed  them,  since  by  so  doing  we  were  ren- 
dering a  service  to  Germany,  not  only  by  removing  the 
danger  of  Belgian  revolt,  but  by  relieving  Germany  of 
the  responsibility  imposed  by  the  Conventions  of  The 
Hague. 

If  the  Germans  considered  the  relief  work  as  in  any 
wise  an  aid  or  comfort  to  them,  they  never  said  so;  in 
fact  they,  or  many  of  them,  seemed  to  hold  to  the  view 
that  in  some  way  it  was  a  great  favour  to  the  Americans 
to  let  them  do  the  work  at  all. 

The  Germans  were  already  beginning  to  show  feeling 
against  the  Americans ;  they  resented  the  selling  of  mu- 

539 


BELGIUM 

nitions  by  Americans,  which  they  always  insisted  upon 
representing  as  the  sale  of  munitions  by  America;  and 
they  did  not  hesitate  to  bring  up  the  subject  with  almost 
any  American  they  met,  although  none  of  the  Amer- 
icans in  Belgium  then  were,  so  far  as  I  know,  manufac- 
turing any  munitions.  If  this  feeling  against  the  Amer- 
icans was  not  allowed  to  show  itself  in  the  attitude  of  the 
diplomats,  it  was  shown  by  others  to  the  delegates  of  the 
C.  R.  B.;  if  they  were  not  treated  as  spies,  they  were 
often  made  to  feel  that  they  were  suspected  of  being 
spies,  or  at  least  potential  spies.  The  German  officers 
with  whom  they  were  oftenest  brought  into  contact 
seemed  not  to  understand  or  not  to  appreciate  the  work 
America  was  doing;  perhaps  it  was  because  they  had  an 
obscure  feeling  that  somewhere  in  the  vast  scheme  there 
was  involved  a  certain  reflection  on  them,  some  vague  re- 
proach, though  the  Americans,  in  their  carefully  guarded 
neutrality,  tried  to  let  no  such  sentiment  appear.  Mr. 
Hoover  himself,  in  one  of  those  visits  he  made  to  Bel- 
gium, went  to  see  the  Governor-General  himself,  and 
came  away  outraged  in  feeling,  threatening  to  withdraw 
from  the  work  and  to  leave  the  onus  on  the  Germans. 
That  interview  concerned  passports — it  was  before  the 
question  was  settled — and  about  the  same  time  he  had  an 
interview  with  a  certain  Captain  of  the  Pass  Zentrale, 
who  said  to  him,  point  blank : 

"What  do  you  Americans  get  out  of  this,  I  should 
like  to  know?" 

Mr.  Hoover  looked  at  him  an  instant,  and  his  eyes 
flashed,  but  he  said  only  this: 

"It  is  absolutely  impossible  for  you  Germans  to  un- 
derstand that  one  does  anything  with  pure,  disinterested, 

540 


THE  RAVITAILLEMENT 

humanitarian  motives,  so  I  shall  not  attempt  to  explain 
it  to  you." 

There  was  nothing  to  be  done,  of  course,  but  to  try  to 
realize  somehow,  and  if  possible  to  ignore,  the  vast  gulf 
that  yawned  between  two  irreconcilable  points  of  view, 
two  antipathetic  attitudes  toward  life,  and  to  keep  on 
with  the  work  of  feeding  the  Belgians. 

The  control  which  the  Governor  General  had  so  gen- 
erously offered  to  permit  us  to  establish  as  we  pleased 
was  to  be  exercised  by  the  delegates  of  the  C.  R.  B.,  who, 
under  the  original  theory,  were  delegates  of  the  Amer- 
ican Minister  for  that  purpose,  but  they  could  not  make 
their  inspections  without  the  passierscheins  necessary  to 
enable  them  to  travel  about. 

The  trouble  about  the  passierscheins  seemed  likely 
never  to  end,  and  one  of  the  men  of  the  C.  R.  B.,  having 
occasion  to  meet  the  Governor-General,  took  advantage 
of  the  opportunity  to  raise  the  subject,  saying  that  the 
passes  given  them  were  often  disregarded.  The  old 
General  pooh-poohed  the  idea,  said  it  could  not  be  pos- 
sible ;  his  passierscheins  must  be  and  were  respected. 

"Very  well,"  said  the  American,  "I  am  going  to  Ber- 
gen-op-Zoom  to-morrow;  if  Your  Excellency  would 
send  a  man  with  me  to  see." 

His  Excellency  would  be  glad  to  do  so,  of  course, 

and  the  learned  Herr  Doktor  P was  detailed  to 

go  in  civilian  clothes.  The  American  and  the  Herr  Dok- 
tor were  furnished  with  the  latest  thing  in  passports, 
and  near  the  frontier  they  were  promptly  halted  by  sol- 
diers, who  ordered  them  out  of  the  car,  and  began  to 
search  it.  The  Herr  Doktor  protested,  showed  the 
passierschein,  but  the  officer  only  said: 

"Halt  dein'  Mund!" 

541 


BELGIUM 

The  Herr  Doktor  protested  more  strongly,  and  told 
the  officer  in  more  explicit  detail  who  he  was,  but  the 
only  effect  of  this  was  to  cause  the  officer  to  strike  the 
Herr  Doktor  in  the  face  with  his  fist.  Then  the  Herr 
Doktor  was  arrested,  and  when  at  the  Kommandantur 
he  began  once  more  those  explanations,  the  officer  in 
charge  there  shouted: 

"Herausr 

The  Herr  Doktor  was  sent  into  Antwerp,  where  after 
more  explanations  and  more  insults  he  was  finally  for- 
warded to  Brussels,  where  at  last  he  was  not  compelled 
to  hold  his  mouth.  The  authorities  threatened  all  kinds 
of  courts  martial  and  punishments.  I  never  heard 
whether  the  courts  martial  were  held  or  not,  or  what 
was  done  to  the  truculent  officers,  but  things  did  go 
better  after  this  illuminating  if  trying  experience  of  the 
poor  Herr  Doktor.  Every  one  in  the  C.  R.  B.  was  ulti- 
mately provided  with  great  passes  of  the  Governor-Gen- 
eral himself — "G-G's"  they  were  called,  and  they  were 
much  sought  after  for  the  sedative, effect  they  exercised 
on  sentinels. 

Ere  long  we  learned  that  it  was  not  enough  to  feed 
the  Belgians ;  the  French  in  the  invaded  portions  of  their 
own  land  were  in  a  condition  worse  than  that  of  the  Bel- 
gians. One  day  a  gentleman  dressed  in  black,  with 
white  hair  and  a  squarely  trimmed  grey  beard,  came  to 
the  Legation  to  tell  me  of  their  pitiable  condition.  The 
gentleman  was  M.  Louis  Guerin,  a  prominent  citizen 
of  Lille.  He  sat  there  at  my  table  with  a  digni- 
fied sadness  in  his  face,  speaking  with  sympathy  of  the 
sorrows  of  his  people,  and  now  and  then  leaning  forward 
in  his  eagerness  to  aid  them;  they  were  near  starvation 
in  his  city.    Could  we  help  them  to  obtain  food? 

542 


THE  RAVITAILLEMENT 

It  seemed  impossible ;  the  task  of  feeding  Belgium  was 
almost  beyond  human  power,  and  that  work  seemed  to 
be  hanging  by  very  slender  threads,  with  almost  insu- 
perable difficulties  surrounding  it.  Even  the  C.  R.  B. 
could  not  follow  in  the  wake  of  the  German  army  as  it 
passed  over  the  earth,  and  victual  the  citizens  left  be- 
hind it!  And  yet — there  was  this  dignified,  saddened 
gentleman,  pleading  for  his  people !  I  could  promise  no 
more  just  then  than  to  discuss  the  question  with  the 
others,  and  I  advised  him  to  see  the  Marquis  and  M. 
Francqui  and  Mr.  Connett,  of  the  C.  R.  B.  I  spoke  to 
them  all  myself  and  they  all,  of  course,  were  most  sym- 
pathetic, but  the  problem  seemed  at  first  insuperable. 

M.  Guerin  returned  to  Brussels,  later,  accom- 
panied by  two  citizens  from  Lille,  and  with  M.  Franc- 
qui, Mr.  Connett  and  me,  discussed  the  situation  again, 
and  he  enlisted  the  sympathy  of  Villalobar,  who  was 
charged  with  French  interests.  We  discussed  it  in  all 
its  difficult  phases ;  it  demanded  not  only  a  new  series  of 
guarantees  from  the  Germans,  not  from  the  Governor- 
General  this  time,  for  his  jurisdiction  did  not  extend 
down  into  the  north  of  France ;  that  was  the  Operations- 
gehiet,  where  the  Hauptquartier  General,  the  great  gen- 
eral staff,  ruled  supreme ;  it  demanded  new  assents  from 
the  British  Government,  and  the  money  to  buy  the  food, 
and  the  machinery  to  distribute  it.  Mr.  Hoover  was 
already  interested,  and  while  we  were  at  our  discussions 
there  came  a  telegram  from  him  saying  that  "certain 
charitably  inclined  persons"  were  ready  to  assure  the 
ravitaillement  of  northern  France.  M.  Francqui  and 
Mr.  Heineman  came,  and  again  we  discussed  it,  M. 
Francqui  with  that  optimism  of  his  which  always  kept 
our  spirits  up,  saying  that  now  that  the  funds  were 

543 


BELGIUM 

forthcoming  it  would  be  mere  child's  play,  '^simple 
comme  un  jeu  df enfant"  to  extend  the  work  of  the  or- 
ganization to  northern  France  under  Mr.  Connett. 

There  were  numerous  discussions  of  the  subject  there 
at  the  Legation,  and  around  the  long  green  table  at  the 
Societe  Generale,  where  the  National  Committee  met, 
and  in  the  pretty  little  Ministere  de  I'lndustrie  et  du 
Travail,  at  the  corner  of  the  Rue  Lambermont  and  the 
Rue  Ducale,  overlooking  the  Park,  where  the  Politische 
Abteilung  was  just  installing  itself.  It  had  just  then 
succeeded  in  detaching  itself  from  the  Zivilverwaltung 
and  in  setting  up  as  an  independent  department  and 
governmental  entity,  no  longer  responsible  to  any  Zivil- 
verwaltungschef  or  Excellenz  whatsoever,  save  Ex- 
cellenz  von  Bissing,  and  no  longer  subject  to  external 
influence  of  Geheimraths,  Herr  Professors  and  Dok- 
tors.  One  morning  while  it  was  leaving  the  Ministry 
of  Agriculture  to  settle  itself  more  comfortably  and 
more  permanently  in  the  Ministry  of  Industry,  Villalo- 
bar  and  I  were  in  the  old  Ministry  which  they  were  just 
leaving,  and  while  Villalobar  was  talking  to  some  one 
I  wandered  over  to  the  end  of  the  room  and  looked  at 
some  rather  fine  English  prints  that  were  there  on  the 
walls,  and  Villalobar  said. 

"Are  you  taking  a  look  around  before  the  general 
demenagement?" 

"I  am  admiring  the  English  prints,"  I  said,  though 
it  was  not  diplomatic  to  admire  anything  English,  and 
then  one  of  the  German  officers  said,  rather  bitterly: 

"If  we  were  the  barbarians  they  say  we  are,  I  should 
take  them  away  with  me." 

The  Ministry  of  Industry  is  an  old  residence,  built  in 
the  middle  of  the  last  century,  in  that  broad  and  elegant 

544 


THE  RAVITAILLEMENT 

style  then  in  vogue,  with  wide,  hospitable  doors  and 
large  windows,  its  smooth  walls  coloured  a  cream  white. 
It  occupies  a  corner  of  the  great  grounds  around  the 
Palais  des  Academies,  and  it  has  a  little  courtyard  with 
verandas  enclosed  in  glass. 

The  charming  old  house,  in  the  days  of  its  first  occu- 
pant, had  been  the  scene  of  a  tragedy,  some  long-for- 
gotten suicide,  and  later  it  became  the  residence  of  the 
Belgian  Minister  of  Industry,  in  turn  to  be  taken  over 
by  such  strange,  uninvited  guests.  In  the  bright  little 
Louis  XVI  salon,  done  in  yellow  satin,  we  were  destined 
to  hold  numerous  sessions,  and  to  watch  through  the 
broad  windows  the  seasons  work  their  miraculous 
changes  in  the  park  across  the  way,  without  changing 
the  sad  condition  of  the  world. 

The  discussions  in  that  yellow  salon  were  not  facile. 
One  had  the  persistent  impression  that  the  representa- 
tives of  Germany  had  been  moved  to  study  Machiavelli 
as  a  text-book,  and  that  in  any  given  exigency  they 
paused  and  sought  out  from  The  Prince  the  maxim 
appropriate  to  the  present  moment  and  to  the  compli- 
cation then  in  hand.  Only  it  was  not  given  quite  the 
Latin  touch  of  delicacy  and  spontaneity  that  Machiavelli 
would  have  his  pupils  give  to  their  works. 

One  never  went  to  see  them  with  a  complaint  that  they 
did  not  have  a  complaint  also,  a  Roland  for  an  Oliver, 
and  this  they  would  produce  before  one  could  advance 
his  own. 

When,  for  instance,  I  went,  on  second  thought,  to 
have  the  assurances  lately  given  by  the  Governor-Gen- 
eral made  precise  and  reduced  to  writing,  it  was  to  learn 
that  there  was  some  difference  of  opinion  as  to  just  what 
those  assurances  were.  The  Governor-General  had  been 

54i5 


BELGIUM 

offended  because  Mr.  Hoover  had  himself  gone  to  Ber- 
lin, and  hence  was  not  disposed  to  give  official  recogni- 
tion to  the  Commission  for  Relief;  he  recognized  only 
the  Comite  National  de  Secours  and  the  patronage  of 
Villalobar  and  myself.  Furthermore,  he  wished  me  to 
know  that  a  ship  called  the  Aymeric,  flying  the  Ameri- 
can flag,  bound  from  New  York  to  Rotterdam  with  a 
cargo  of  food  for  the  ravitaillement,  had  put  into  a 
British  port  and  there  discharged  arms  and  munitions, 
that  the  wife  and  daughter  of  our  Consul-General  at 
Brussels,  Mr.  Watts,  had  made  statements  against  the 
Germans,  in  consequence  of  which  Mr.  Watts,  just  then 
in  Holland,  would  not  be  allowed  to  re-enter  Belgium; 
and,  as  if  this  were  not  enough,  that  the  Commission  for 
Relief  in  Belgium  cars  were  flying  too  many  American 
flags  in  the  faces  of  German  soldiers. 

Then  it  was  charged  that  the  steamship  Doria,  of  the 
Commission  for  Relief,  en  route  from  Halifax  to  Rotter- 
dam, had  debarked  arms  and  ammunition  in  England. 
Also  the  steamship  Calcutta,  likewise  from  Halifax  to 
Rotterdam,  had  stopped  at  an  English  port  and  there 
discharged  arms  and  munitions.  These  were  a  few  of 
the  obstacles  in  the  way  of  a  precision  of  the  new  guar- 
antees. I  had  the  conviction  even  then  that  these  reports 
were  all  erroneous,  but  I  assured  Lancken  that  my  Gov- 
ernment would  make  an  investigation,  and  observed  that 
it  would  be  easier  to  feed  a  lamb  confined  in  a  cage  with 
a  lion  and  a  tiger,  than  to  try  to  feed  the  Belgians  witli 
the  Germans  and  the  English  supervising  the  task.  I 
told  Lancken  also  that  I  should  not  be  surprised  at  any 
moment  to  hear  that  the  English  had  stopped  the  ravi- 
taillement  altogether.     "Why?"  I  was  asked. 

"Because,"  I  said,  and  I  put  it  bluntly,  "because  there 

546 


THE  RAVITAILLEMENT 

are  those  who  say  that  it  is  your  duty,  under  the  Hague 
Conventions,  to  feed  the  Belgians,  and  that  if  you  allow 
them  to  go  hungry  they  will  revolt  and  rise  against  you, 
and  thus  make  your  task  all  the  harder." 
The  Baron  raised  his  hands  in  horror: 
"Mon  Dieu,  mon  Dieu,  quelle  sauvagerie!" 
I  said  no  more,  but  left  him  with  this  thought  to  mull 
over. 

In  the  end,  however,  the  matter  of  feeding  the  north 
of  France  was  arranged,  very  largely  without  our  direct 
mediation.  M.  Guerin  had  been  allowed  to  make 
the  long  journey  around  from  Lille  to  Paris,  and  the 
ravitaillement  for  the  north  of  France  had  been  ar- 
ranged. Mr.  Hoover  had  been  to  Berlin  and  an  agree- 
ment was  secured  directly  with  the  General  StaiF,  which 
as  the  ruling  power  in  Germany  could  discuss  questions 
\^^ith  authority  and  settle  them  promptly.  The  details 
were  arranged  by  the  C.  R.  B.  in  its  new  international 
capacity  of  a  treating  power  with  a  flag  of  its  own, 
and  it  was  to  carry  on  the  work  alone. 

The  C.  R.  B.,  rapidly  growing  into  the  amazing  in- 
stitution it  later  became,  almost  the  one  international 
organization  in  working  order  left  in  the  world,  soon  had 
its  own  flag  flying  on  the  seven  seas,  and  Mr.  Connett 
put  this  flag  on  the  motors,  and  thereby  settled  one  point 
of  delicacy,  though  I  was  able  to  arrange  that  the  Amer- 
ican flag  continue  to  fly  on  the  provincial  depots  of  the 
Commission. 

And,  despite  all  the  difficulties,  the  food  was  coming 
in,  and  now  and  then  some  American,  whom  it  was  a 
pleasure  and  a  comfort  to  see,  came  with  it.  One  of 
those  who  brought  us  most  cheer  was  Mr.  William  C. 
Edgar,  of  Minnesota,  publisher  of  the  Bellman,  who 

547 


BELGIUM 

had  brought  over  a  ship  load  of  provisions  he  had 
collected,  and  could  tell  stories  of  his  perilous  pas- 
sage among  the  mines  of  the  North  Sea,  and  of  the 
old  skipper,  nearly  seventy  years  of  age,  who,  after 
having  turned  over  the  navigation  of  the  ship  to  the 
river  pilot,  came  down  into  the  cabin  and  poured  out  his 
glass  of  grog,  lighted  his  pipe,  and  began  to  talk  about 
his  wife's  vegetable  garden,  as  if  there  was  nothing  in 
the  world  more  exciting — quite  worthy  of  Joseph 
Conrad. 

Mr.  Edgar  made  a  tour  through  Belgium  with  Mr. 
Connett,  saw  Dinant  and  Tamines,  and  the  crosses  in 
the  churchyard  with  the  date  of  August  22nd,  1914,  and 
went  back  home  to  do  excellent  service  in  the  cause  of 
the  brave  people  who  were  only  three  weeks  from  starva- 
tion, and  in  the  cause  of  liberty  in  the  world. 

And  there  was  a  noble  woman,  Dr.  Caroline  Hedger, 
of  Chicago,  who,  with  her  secretary,  Miss  Hall,  to  aid 
her,  did  such  heroic  work  among  the  poor,  stamping  out 
a  typhoid  plague  in  the  village  of  Willebroeck,  near 
Antwerp,  and  contributing  so  much  to  the  saving  of  the 
babies.  She  had  the  usual  difficulty  of  the  times — the 
Germans  at  Antwerp  thought  that  her  charts  showing 
the  typhoid  infection  were  some  sort  of  cipher  maps 
destined  to  the  Allies. 

"They  are  all  abnormal,"  she  said,  speaking  of  the 
Germans.  "In  dealing  with  them  I  always  remember 
that  I  am  dealing  with  the  insane;  their  suspicion  kills 
me;  I  begin  to  feel  like  a  criminal  myself,  and  now  I 
know  how  the  neighbours  feel  when  the  police  are  after 
them." 

She  said  it  wistfully.    "The  neighbours!"  I  could  see 

548 


THE  RAVITAILLEMENT 

all  those  poor  in  Chicago,  among  whom  she  had  laboured 
so  long  and  so  devotedly. 

There  proved  to  be,  as  I  had  anticipated,  no  founda- 
tion for  the  belief  that  the  Commission  ships  were  carry- 
ing munitions;  investigation  soon  cleared  up  that 
point ;  and  the  members  of  our  Consul's  family  were  duly 
exonerated  of  the  charge  of  speaking  against  the  Ger- 
mans, whatever  they  may  inwardly  have  felt,  and  Con- 
sul-General  Watts  could  return  to  Brussels  to  resume 
the  duties  he  so  bravely  and  ably  discharged  in  the  midst 
of  such  trying  circumstances. 

The  Commission  even  added  another  to  the  list  of 
services  it  was  rendering.  Lace  in  Belgium  means  lace, 
"real"  lace,  as  we  have  to  say  in  lands  where  there  are 
cheap  imitations  made  by  machinery;  most  of  the  real 
lace  of  the  world  was  made  in  Belgium,  and  before  the 
war  Queen  Elisabeth  had  interested  herself  in  the  plight 
of  the  lace-makers.  They  were  Flemish  women  who 
worked  at  home  in  odd  hours,  each  wearing  out  her  eyes 
in  repeating  monotonously  over  and  over  the  same  de- 
sign or  part  of  a  design — a  single  star,  or  a  leaf.  These 
parts  of  designs  were  collected  and  assembled  by  the 
patron  who  exploited  these  women.  These  dentelUeres 
made,  perhaps,  a  franc  a  day,  and  when  the  war 
came  on  and  no  more  thread  could  be  obtained,  and 
no  lace  could  be  shipped  out,  there  were  forty-four 
thousand  lace-workers  nearing  starvation.  The 
Queen  was  gone,  and  the  ladies  of  the  Committee 
Her  Majesty  had  organized  asked  my  wife  to  ac- 
cept the  Honorary  Presidency;  assurances  were 
obtained  from  the  Germans,  the  C.  R.  B.  was 
authorized  to  import  thread  and  to  export  the  lace, 
and  the  industry  was  placed  on  a  basis  it  had  never 

549 


BELGIUM 

known  before.  It  not  only  saved  the  lace-workers  from 
their  immediate  plight,  but  it  released  them  from  their 
old  thralldom  to  the  patrons.  The  artists  of  Brussels, 
under  the  inspiration  of  the  Comtesse  Elisabeth  d'Oul- 
tremont,  the  Vicomtesse  de  Beughem  and  Madame  Josse 
Allard,  who  directed  the  large  enterprise,  made  new  de- 
signs, prettier  than  any  lace  known  before,  and  each 
woman  was  allowed  to  make  a  whole  piece — which 
meant  emancipation.  And  not  only  were  the  dentel- 
lieres  given  employment  but,  what  was  not  less  impor- 
tant in  its  ultimate  result,  a  new  aesthetic  appreciation 
of  this  rare  and  beautiful  art  was  created  in  America. 
.  .  .  l(fes,  the  food  was  coming  in,  and  that  was  all- 
sufficient.  Down  on  the  docks  there  were  vast  fleets  of 
barges  and  lighters  from  Holland,  and  the  Dutch  and 
Flemish  canal  boats,  aboard  which  whole  families  lived 
in  the  neat  little  cabins,  with  pretty  curtains  at  the  win- 
dows and  children  recklessly  playing  about  the  decks  in 
the  wooden  shoes  which  one  feared  were  ever  going  to 
send  them  floundering  into  the  water,  though  by  some 
grace  they  were  preserved,  and  those  charming  little 
dogs — "scMpperkesf'  as  the  Flemish  call  them — "little 
skippers,"  who  long  ago  lost  their  tails  by  sitting  down 
on  them  so  often  on  the  decks  of  the  canal  boats.  And 
there  were  the  vast  warehouses  stacked  high  with  bags 
of  flour  and  boxes  of  bacon,  condensed  milk,  even  pea- 
nuts and  candy,  which  American  children  had  sent  for 
the  little  Belgians,  who  had  never  heard  of  peanuts  and 
did  not  know  what  to  do  with  them.  They  found  them 
almost  as  strange  as  their  elders  found  the  maize,  as 
they  always  called  our  Indian  corn,  or  as  the  cowboy 
who  for  a  while  was  in  charge  of  the  docks,  delighting 
them  with  his  theatricals,  as  though  he  had  come  out 

550 


THE  RAVITAILLEMENT 

of  Buffalo  Bill's  Wild  West  show,  as  perhaps  he  had. 

Mr.  Gifford  Pinchot  was  coming  to  be  director  of  the 
work  in  northern  France.  We  had  been  expecting  him 
for  days,  and  one  evening,  wondering  what  had  befallen 
him,  I  learned  that  he  had  arrived.  Count  Harrach 
came  in,  wearing  his  hussar  uniform  with  the  ribbon  of 
the  Iron  Cross  knotted  on  one  of  the  frogs.  He  came 
on  the  part  of  the  Governor-General,  whose  compli- 
ments he  duly  bore,  to  say  that  Mr.  Pinchot  had  been 
detained  at  the  frontier. 

The  Governor-General,  as  the  Count  had  come  to  do 
me  the  honour  to  report,  regretted  that  Mr.  Pinchot 
could  not  come  into  Belgium  because  he  was  the  brother- 
in-law  of  Sir  Alan  Johnstone,  the  British  Minister  at 
The  Hague,  and  that  while  at  The  Hague  he  had  been 
Sir  Alan's  guest  at  the  Legation.  I  suddenly  recalled 
this  relationship.  None  of  us  had  ever  thought  of  it 
when  Mr.  Pinchot  was  proposed  for  the  work  in  north- 
ern France.  Under  the  circumstances,  the  Count  said, 
we  would  of  course  appreciate  General  von  Bissing's 
inability  to  permit  Mr.  Pinchot  to  come  into  Belgium 
and  to  travel  at  large  over  the  country,  but  inasmuch  as 
Dr.  van  Dyke  had  asked  for  the  pass,  and  as  it  had  been 
issued  for  Antwerp,  the  Governor- General  had  given 
orders  that  Mr.  Pinchot  should  go  to  Antwerp,  but  that 
thence  he  should  return  at  once  to  The  Hague.  I  ex- 
plained that  Mr.  Pinchot  was  a  distinguished  personality 
and  a  gentleman  of  irreproachable  honour,  but  the  Count 
said  it  was  not  a  question  of  his  personality  or  of  his 
position;  the  German  authorities  had  decided  that  he 
could  not  come  here  because  of  his  relation  to  Sir  Alan. 
There  was  nothing  to  be  done  whenever  it  was  a  question 
involving  the  English,  and  it  was  my  unpleasant  and 

551 


BELGIUM 

ungrateful  task  to  inform  Mr.  Pinchot,  in  a  note  which  I 
had  to  send  through  the  German  authorities,  of  the  re- 
grettable decision  of  the  Governor-General.  Thus  we 
were  deprived  of  the  services  of  Mr.  Pinchot,  and  the 
work  of  directing  the  distribution  of  the  food  in  northern 
France  was  therefore  devolved  on  Mr.  Connett,  the 
Director  of  the  Commission. 


LXXI 

SPRING 

The  winter  was  over  and  spring  had  come,  and,  to 
adopt  a  phrase  from  that  wonderful  first  paragraph  of 
Tolstoy's  "Resurrection,"  spring  was  spring,  even  in 
Belgium.  In  the  Place  de  I'lndustrie  the  young  leaves 
were  a  vivid  green,  the  soft  buds  were  falling  on  the 
damp  pavement.  The  flower  market  in  the  Grand'  Place 
was  once  more  blooming  in  its  brilliant  colours.  Walking 
one  morning  in  the  Rue  de  la  Paix  I  saw  a  pretty  boy — 
he  could  not  have  been  fifteen — playing  a  guitar;  he 
played  it  loudly  and  triumphantly,  and  it  was  the  pro- 
hibited "Marseillaise"  that  he  played!  Windows  were 
flung  up  suddenly  all  along  the  street,  there  was  de- 
lighted laughter  and  a  clapping  of  hands,  a  sudden 
shower  of  coins  on  the  sidewalk,  and  then  all  the  win- 
dows were  as  suddenly  closed.  Along  the  Avenue  Louise 
under  the  budding  chestnut  trees  the  whole  population 
seemed  to  be  taking  deep  inhalations  of  the  spring  air, 
basking  in  the  sunlight  after  the  dreary  winter.  Ger- 
man soldiers  sat  before  the  open  cafes  drinking  beer  as 
though  they  were  quite  at  home,  but  the  people  went  on 
their  way  calmly  as  though  the  soldiers  did  not  exist, 
a  way  of  sending  them  to  Coventry — the  only  place,  ap- 
parently, to  which  they  could  send  them. 

In  the  Bois  people  were  rowing  on  the  little  lake, 
youths  and  maidens  were  courting,  and  children  playing 
hide  and  seek  behind  the  noble  trees.  In  the  Park  old 
von  Bissing,   in  his  bluish-grey  greatcoat,   with   the 

553 


BELGIUM 

broad  white  collar  and  the  red  reveres,  the  cap  with  the 
red  band,  and  an  enormous  sabre  clanking  against  his 
boots,  accompanied  by  an  aide,  was  taking  the  air,  walk- 
ing slowly,  stiffly,  like  an  automaton.  The  spring 
seemed  to  have  affected  him  too;  he  was  just  out  in  a 
new  affiche  about  the  pigeons.  In  view  of  the  excellent 
conduct — either  of  the  Belgians  or  of  the  pigeons,  we 
could  not  be  quite  sure — the  pigeons  might  fly  from 
three  o'clock  to  six,  but  at  that  hour  they  must  all  be 
snugly  in  their  coots  once  more.  It  was  a  fact,  abun- 
dantly recognized  by  all,  especially  on  sunny  mornings, 
that  the  war  could  not  last  another  winter;  there  were 
innumerable  reasons,  military,  political,  financial,  dynas- 
tic, social,  and  hope  was  high ;  the  Allies  might  arrive  at 
any  time! 

It  was  impossible  to  resist  the  temptation  of  the  fields, 
the  wistful  haze,  the  warm  air,  the  sky  without  a  cloud — 
without  even  the  usual  ugly  German  captive  balloons — 
saucissons,  they  were  called,  because  they  looked  like 
sausages — to  mar  it.  Every  one  felt  the  need  of  move- 
ment, the  longing  to  get  away,  but  since  the  Brussels 
folk  could  not  go  far — there  was  always  the  lack  of 
passierscheins,  which  spring  itself,  alas !  could  not  amend 
— they  would  invade  the  Foret  in  bands  on  Sundays, 
and  explore  all  the  lovely  land  toward  Tervueren.  A 
few  friends  and  I  even  ventured  out  to  Ravenstein  for 
a  round  of  golf ;  true,  the  course  had  not  been  kept  up ; 
the  two  English  professionals  were  gone — Pannell  in 
the  British  army  and  Kyte  a  prisoner  at  Ruhleben;  the 
members  were  scattered,  the  grass  was  long,  and  few  had 
the  heart  to  play  any  more.  But  the  old  chateau  was  a 
peaceful  place  of  an  afternoon;  the  larks  were  soaring 
and  singing  again,  and  there  were  other  songs,  or  one 

554 


SPRING 

afternoon  there  was  another  song,  from  across  the  fields 
toward  Tervueren;  a  procession  of  children  was  wind- 
ing along  the  road  far  in  the  hazy  distance ;  their  clear, 
sweet,  childish  voices  came  to  us,  borne  on  the  breeze — 
in  the  strains  of  "La  Braban^onne."  And  my  Belgian 
companion  turned  away,  biting  his  lip.  .  .  . 

To  be  sure,  we  of  the  legations  were  shamelessly  privi- 
leged; we  could  motor  where  we  would,  as  long  as  we 
stayed  in  the  Occupationsgebiet.  Villalobar  frequently 
drove  to  Namur  to  inspect  the  chateau  de  Dave,  belong- 
ing to  his  aunt,  who  had  fled  before  the  oncoming  tide  of 
war  and  was  in  Spain.  And  now  and  then  I  was  called 
by  some  duty,  or  if  not  by  duty,  by  some  whim,  to  Dinant 
or  Louvain  or  Mons,  and  the  drives  never  lost  their 
charm.  Much  of  the  country  about  Brussels  showed  no 
physical  effect  of  the  war,  though  one  could  never  escape 
its  presence,  the  gi'im  fact  of  it,  or  rid  one's  self  of  the 
depressing  preoccupation  that  all  was  not  well  with  the 
world.  And  yet,  there  along  the  roads  with  their  way- 
side shrines  were  still  the  cumbersome  carts  and  the 
strange  waggons  with  three  wheels,  though  they  had 
cows  yoked  to  them;  now  and  then  a  country  doctor, 
who  might  have  driven  out  of  one  of  Balzac's  novels  of 
provincial  life,  was  jogging  along  in  his  high  gig;  a 
sower  was  going  forth  to  sow,  his  bag  under  his  arm, 
casting  the  seed  abroad  with  that  long  leisurely  sweep 
of  the  arm — Millet  might  have  painted  him,  as  Jacques 
might  have  painted  the  flocks  of  sheep,  the  shepherds  in 
their  cloaks,  with  their  crooks  and  their  dogs. 

Once  under  its  influence  one  can  never  escape  the 
spell  of  Belgium,  or  wish  to  do  so.  It  is  not  only  pic- 
turesque, but,  a  detail  that  picturesqueness  in  certain 
other  lands  too  frequently  lacks,  it  is  clean ;  not  a  fallen 

555 


BELGIUM 

twig  that  is  not  picked  up ;  the  people  are  scrubbing  and 
polishing  all  the  time.  The  gi-eat  Foret  de  Soignes, 
which  once  had  covered  with  its  noble  splendour  all  that 
land  between  the  city  and  Tervueren,  and  south  to  Wa- 
terloo— the  Park  and  the  Bois  in  Brussels  are  remnants 
of  it,  and  it  remains  in  pristine  glory  there  about  Ter- 
\iieren — had  all  the  enchantment  of  the  Forest  of  Ar- 
den,  which  was  not,  after  all,  so  far  away,  and  I  recall 
a  sunny  day  when  there  at  the  Eight  Cross  Roads  we 
turned  and  went  thence  on  through  th^  woods,  with  their 
tender  greens  and  blossoms,  and  their  birds.  Far  off 
falling  trunks  crashed  with  a  solemn  boom.  The  wily 
peasants  were  surreptitiously  felling  the  trees.  We 
went  on  deeper  into  the  woods  of  Tervueren,  along  an 
avenue  of  noble  pines,  low  hanging  and  cool,  like  our 
woods  in  Michigan,  and  then  out  into  a  new  clearing 
where  whole  acres  of  pines  had  been  felled,  a  sad  spec- 
tacle ;  it  takes  so  long  to  produce  a  tree !  The  trunks  lay 
in  winrows  on  the  ground,  the  air  was  laden  with  the 
odour  of  their  balsam.  The  old  Flemish  woodsman,  his 
hands  black  with  resin,  stood  a  moment  to  rest,  leaning 
on  the  axe  with  which  he  had  been  lopping  off  the 
boughs,  and  he  explained  that  the  trees  were  being  cut 
out  at  the  order  of  the  Germans.  Where  were  they  to 
go?    He  shook  his  wise  old  head. 

Out  of  the  woods,  on  a  hill,  below  us  and  all  around 
for  miles  the  little  fields  in  the  harmonious  tones  of  their 
green  and  red  and  brown  lying  like  soft,  rich  carpets  in 
the  warm  sun;  suddenly,  just  over  the  horizon  I  saw  a 
slender  spire  and  four  sails  of  a  windmill  turning  lazily 
in  the  breeze,  and  recognized  them  instantly  as  the  spire 
and  the  windmill  we  used  to  watch  with  endless  interest 
and  emotion  in  their  peculiar  charm  from  the  terrace 

55Q 


SPRING 

of  Bois  Fleuri,  that  long-lost  summer,  Christminster, 
we  used  to  call  the  unknown  town  lost  in  the  mystery  of 
the  far  horizon. 

The  patient  peasants  were  tilling  their  fields;  with 
what  courage,  with  what  faith!  There  was  a  strong, 
handsome  peasant  woman  who  might  have  come  out  of, 
or  at  least  gone  into,  a  novel  by  Mr.  Thomas  Hardy. 
She  paused  to  talk  with  us,  glad  of  an  excuse  to  rest 
from  her  heavy  toil.  The  brown  men  working  with  her 
in  the  fields  paused  too  in  their  labour,  and  looked  up, 
and  beyond  there  were  other  peasants  going  homeward 
over  the  hill.  .  .  .  Then,  at  the  risk  of  destroying  an- 
other illusion,'  on  through  a  sunken  road,  like  the  one  at 
Ohain,  with  old,  ancient,  humble  cots  and  wayside 
shrines,  and  so  into  Christminster  just  around  the  turn 
of  the  road.  But  for  once  the  reality  equalled  the  dream. 
We  entered  the  pretty  little  village  of  Duysbourg,  with 
its  eighteenth-century  church,  its  high  town  pump,  and 
its  bevy  of  curious  children,  and  as  we  emerged  again, 
old  walls  overhung  with  cherry  boughs  in  bloom. 

Loveliest  of  trees,  the  cherry  now,  • 

Is  hung  with  blooms  along  the  bough, 
And  stands  about  the  woodland  ride. 
Wearing  white  for  Eastertide. 

The  sun  rays  slanted  across  the  fields,  enveloping 
every  roof  and  outline  with  an  aura — a  phenomenon  the 
effect  of  which  is  enhanced  by  the  moist  atmosphere  of 
the  low  countries.  Just  as  one  turned  into  Tervueren, 
in  a  dell  below  an  old  chateau  is  a  stone  grotto  and  a 
shrine  within;  three  candles  were  burning  there,  three 
little  pointed  flames  against  the  blackness  of  the  grotto, 
and  a  girl  was  kneeling  before  it  at  her  prayers.  .  .  . 

557 


BELGIUM 

But  at  Tervueren  there  are  again  those  grey  figures 
who  have  ravished  the  lovely  land,  and  well  nigh  rav- 
ished faith  and  hope  out  of  the  breast  of  man.  A  sen- 
tinel stops  us,  then  waves  us  on  again.  A  company  of 
soldiers  plodding  in  their  clumsy  boots,  march  into  a 
flock  of  sheep  and  scatter  them  right  and  left  in  panic. 
Across  the  fields  a  squadron  of  Uhlans,  the  black-and- 
white  pennants  fluttering  from  their  lances,  gallop  reck- 
lessly over  the  ground  the  peasants  have  just  tilled,  the 
peasants  flying  in  terror  before  them. 

Down  a  peaceful  side  road,  half-way  to  Louvain,  is 
the  old  chateau  of  Leef  dael.  There  had  been  an  engage- 
ment near  there  in  August,  1914,  Belgian  chasseurs 
galloping  along  the  road  and  over  the  fields,  and  a  Ger- 
man hussar  plunging  his  horse  into  a  ditch  and  breaking 
his  neck.  The  Germans  pillaged  the  chateau  and  took 
oh  jets  d'art,  everything,  away,  cut  the  old  paintings  out 
of  their  frames,  carried  off  even  the  bed-clothing.  There 
is  a  pretty  chapel. 

"Did  they  go  in  there?"  I  asked  an  old  peasant. 

"No,  only  one  of  the  officers." 

"And  what  did  he  do?" 

"He  said  his  prayers  for  half  an  hour." 

The  light  fades  from  the  fields.  High  over  Brussels 
in  the  blurred  sky  two  ugly  captive  balloons  mark  the 
place  for  the  Zeppelins  to  return  from  their  raids;  and 
the  sound  of  the  cannonading  comes  from  the  distant 
front  in  France. 

Occasionally  we  would  go  down  to  Mariemont  to 
lunch  with  Raoul  Warocque,  taking  the  road  to  Water- 
loo through  the  little  villages,  occupied  by  companies  of 
the  melancholy  old  men  of  the  Landsturm;  there  were 

558 


SPRING 

always  troops  of  children  shouting  ''Vive  VAmenqueT 
and  old  peasants  doffing  their  caps,  or,  if  it  happened  to 
be  a  Sunday,  processions  of  young  girls  in  white  frocks 
for  their  first  communion. 

The  present  chateau  of  Mariemont  was  built  in  the 
middle  of  the  last  century  to  replace  the  old,  which,  hav- 
ing been  burned  in  1794  during  the  French  revolution, 
lies  now  in  picturesque  ruins  in  the  great  park.  Charles 
V,  Marie-Therese,  Louis  XIV,  and  other  monarchs 
whose  glories  have  departed  were  entertained  there,  but 
the  park  is  given  another  aspect  to-day,  something  of 
contemporaneity,  by  the  great  vase  of  Devreese,  and 
statues  by  Rousseau,  the  Belgian,  and  by  Rodin.  A 
replica  of  "The  Bourgeois  of  Calais"  is  there,  and  there 
are  strange  trophies  of  Warocque's  life  in  China,  great 
Buddhas  and  temples,  and  in  the  chateau  there  are  col- 
lections that  give  it  the  aspect  of  a  museum.  In  those 
spring  days  of  1915  there  were  always,  besides  the  gi'az- 
ing  deer,  German  officers  and  German  soldiers  strolling 
about,  entirely  at  home.  The  officers  went  frequently; 
they  used  to  send  an  orderly  to  say  what  they  wished  for 
dinner,  announce  the  number  of  uninvited  guests,  and 
insist  on  Warocque  making  up  bridge-parties  in  the 
evening. 

Poor  Warocque !  He  did  much  for  his  country.  His 
chateau  was  the  local  headquarters  of  the  C.  R.  B.;  Mr. 
Carstairs,  the  C.  R.  B.  delegate,  lived  there,  and  the 
American  flag  floated  from  the  staff  until  the  German 
Kreischef  objected.  And  in  the  midst  of  all  his  wealth, 
his  collections,  the  finest  library  perhaps  in  Belgium,  and 
all  the  trophies  of  his  travels,  Warocque  sickened,  and 
the  strain  and  sorrow  of  the  war  hastened  him  toward 
his  end.    He  came,  finally,  to  have  only  one  wish,  one 

.559 


BELGIUM 

longing,  and  that  was  to  live  to  see  the  King  come 
back,  and  even  that  was  not  to  be  granted. 

As  one  drove  from  Dinant,  all  along  the  road  from 
Brussels  to  Namur  and  over  all  the  fields  were  new 
barbed-wire  entanglements  and  new  trenches  with  little 
steel  turrets,  and  German  soldiers  in  the  dirty  grey- 
uniforms,  their  guns  slung  over  their  backs,  bending 
by  the  wayside  picking  buttercups!  The  steel  turrets 
were  the  latest  thing  in  trench  warfare,  it  was  said,  and 
they  were  not  altogether  unpleasing  to  the  natives,  since 
they  suggested  the  possibility  of  retreat,  and  gave  rise 
to  constant  rumours  that  the  Germans  were  about  to 
fall  back  along  the  line  of  the  Meuse.  There  were  ruins, 
too,  at  Namur,  especially  in  the  Grand'  Place,  and 
Dinant  was  another  and  a  worse  Louvain.  The  charm- 
ing little  village  was  quite  gone ;  the  curious  spire,  some- 
thing like  a  minaret,  so  familiar  in  the  pictures  of  the 
town,  had  disappeared ;  and  in  the  main  quarter  the  poor 
people  were  digging  among  the  ruins,  pathetically  hunt- 
ing some  souvenir  of  their  broken  lives,  or,  with  a  cour- 
age that  was  remarkable,  perhaps  trying  to  clear  away 
the  ruins  in  order  to  remake  them.  We  drove  on  through 
the  town,  through  the  cleft  of  the  Rocher  Bayard,  and 
on  up  the  hill.  The  Meuse  flowed  below,  and  two  little 
Walloon  children  stood  staring  at  us.  They  were  just 
like  the  children  who  were  shot  that  terrible  August 
evening  near  that  very  spot,  on  the  shore  of  the  river 
that  flowed  by  so  tranquilly.  .  .  .  Fortunately  there 
was  some  candy  to  give  them. 

There  are  many  inexplicable  injustices  under  the  sun, 
but  none,  to  my  mind,  so  inexplicable  as  innocent  suff'er- 
ing,  the  cruelty  inflicted  on  children  and  animals.  I 
knew  a  man  near  Givet,  a  rocky  wooded  country  beyond 

560 


SPRING 

Dinant,  where  many  of  the  earlier  atrocities  were  com- 
mitted by  the  Germans!  On  the  night  of  the  twenty- 
third  of  August  from  his  home  he  saw  twenty-seven  vil- 
lages in  flames,  the  flames  of  Dinant  rising  higher  than 
any  other  in  the  sky,  glowing  red  as  from  an  inferno. 
And  of  all  the  civilians  who  were  stood  up  against  the 
walls  to  be  shot  not  one  asked  for  mercy.  But  yes — 
there  was  one;  a  little  boy  of  twelve  who,  just  as  they 
placed  him  against  the  wall,  began  to  whimper  and  to 
beg,  piteously.  .  .  .  The  bullets  stilled  his  crying. 

But  nature,  like  man,  though  not  quite  so  cruel — since 
there  is  impassivity,  a  kind  of  impersonality,  in  her 
cruelty,  forgets.  Already  the  ruins  of  Dinant  had  taken 
on  an  ancient  and  detached,  almost  a  classic  air,  so  that 
we  viewed  them  with  hardly  more  emotion  than  we 
viewed  the  ruins  of  the  Abbaye  de  Villers,  on  the  road 
homewards,  a  point  for  tourists  before  the  war,  when 
there  were  few  other  romantic  ruins  to  see  in  busy 
Belgium. 

German  soldiers  were  guarding  the  ruins  there  in  that 
gloomy  ravine,  lest  some  one  remove  them,  perhaps — 
although  they  allowed  us  to  wander  about  among  the 
ruins  and  to  try  to  decipher  the  inscriptions  on  the  stone 
tablets,  taken  from  the  graves  of  the  old  abbots  and  the 
nobles  who  once  were  buried  there.  Sauviter  et  Fortiter 
and  Post  Tenehra  sperro  lucem.  Ah  yes ;  perhaps !  The 
rooks  cawed  from  the  dripping  mossy  walls  and  flapped 
heavily  over  the  high  nave  and  transept  that  were  open 
to  the  sky.  And  all  this  ruin  was  wrought  in  the  name  of 
democracy  during  the  French  revolution,  as  ruin  is 
wrought  to-day  in  the  name  of  autocracy.  Is  the  folly 
of  the  human  race,  after  all,  quite  incorrigible?  .   .   . 

At  tea  that  afternoon  in  the  salon  with  its  soft  faded 

561 


BELGIUM 

colours  and  the  grace  and  harmony  of  its  Louis  XIV 
furnishings,  the  Baroness  was  in  her  corner  knitting; 
the  little  table  at  her  elbow  covered  with  oh  jets  dfart^ 
with  a  photograph  of  the  Queen  and  one  of  the  boy  who 

was  on  the  Yser;  L sits  on  the  fender  moodily 

smoking  a  cigarette;  B 's  monocle  seems  so  high 

in  his  pale  face,  and  his  wife  lolls  indolently  in  a  fau- 

teuil.      The  old  Count  d'O ,  grown  old  and  white 

in  an  abiding  grief  over  the  catastrophe  of  his  country, 
sits  and  stares  vaguely  before  him.  There  is  the  usual 
gossip,  there  are  the  usual  stories  of  the  latest  German 
atrocities,  of  the  latest  exhibition  of  German  taste,  of 
la  mentalite  allemande;  then  the  prospects  of  the  Rus- 
sian advance,  speculation  as  to  when  the  Allies  will 
arrive,  the  dream  of  the  day  when  the  King  will  come 
back;  something  too  about  Kitchener,  bitter  reflections 
on  Italy,  who  will  not  come  into  the  war. 

"Enjinr  sighs  the  Baroness  wearily.  Then  a  long 
silence.  There  is  no  more  to  be  said,  and  for  the  feeling 
deep  in  all  hearts,  no  expression.  It  is  raining;  the  water 
drips  dismally  from  the  trees  along  the  boulevard.  There 
is  no  spring,  after  all.  In  the  stillness  of  the  universal 
depression  the  Baroness  heaves  a  sigh  and  says : 

"Mais,  tout  de  meme,  its  sont  diablement  pfes  de 
Parish 


LXXII 

VIOLATIONS  OF  THE  CONVENTION 

April  8  was  the  birthday  of  King  Albert.^  There 
were  extra  guards  placed  to  prevent  any  manifes- 
tation, and  the  display  of  the  national  colours  was, 
of  course,  forbidden ;  there  seemed  to  be  nothing  that  his 
people  could  do  to  testify  their  love,  their  admiration — 
one  might  almost  say  their  idolatry,  for  the  most  heroic 
figure,  I  suppose,  in  the  modern  world,  and  more  heroic 
than  most  figures  in  the  ancient  world.  But  while  he 
was  down  there  in  the  little  corner  of  his  kingdom  that 
remained  to  him,  fighting  to  protect  it,  and  not  only  it, 
but  France  and  England  and  America  and  all  others 
whose  lives  and  liberty  were  equally  involved — the  dra- 
matic anomaly  of  a  king  fighting  for  democracy — it  was 
decided,  no  one  knew  how,  that  gentlemen  were  to  wear 
high  hats  and  walk  on  the  boulevard  that  day,  there 
being  as  yet  no  verboten  to  that  effect.  It  Was  not  a  very 
good  day  for  high  hats ;  there  were  giboulees,  a  flash  of 
sun  one  minute  and  rain,  or  hail,  or  snow,  or  perhaps  all 
three,  the  next,  but  every  man  in  Brussels  who  had  a 
high  hat  wore  it,  and  that  honoured  symbol  of  respecta- 
bility received  a  new  consecration. 

It  was  about  that  time,  though  the  two  events  had  no 
relation,  that  the  Germans  took  over  the  Red  Cross.  One 
afternoon,  while  the  Red  Cross  officials,  the  Countess  de 

^  The  King's  fete  officially  falls  on  November  1 5,  but  after  the 
war  the  Belgian  people  began  to  celebrate  in  addition  his  birth- 
day, April  8. 

563 


BELGIUM 

Merode,  the  Prince  de  Ligne,  and  others  appointed  by 
King  Albert,  were  holding  a  meeting,  the  Prince  Hatz- 
feld  suddenly  appeared,  and,  on  behalf  of  the  Governor- 
General,  notified  them  that  they  were  removed  from 
their  posts,  that  the  Governor- General  proposed  to  take 
over  the  Red  Cross  himself  and  have  it  conducted  by  a 
delegate  named  by  him,  and  that  "at  the  disposition  of 
this  delegate  there  would  be  placed  the  armed  forces." 
The  Belgian  delegates  decided  to  make  a  written  protest 
to  von  Bissing — very  politely,  of  course,  and  to  prepare 
a  statement  for  the  International  Red  Cross  at  Geneva. 
The  protests  were  duly  made  and  filed,  but  thereafter 
Prince  Hatzfeld  directed  the  Red  Cross  in  Belgium. 

This  sensation  occurred  concurrently  with  another 
that  created  some  excitement  at  German  Headquarters. 
Cardinal  Mercier  had  written  a  letter  to  the  Bishop  of 
Paris,  which  was  published  in  the  French  newspapers — 
a  letter  excoriating  some  of  the  deeds  of  the  Germans  in 
Belgium ;  and  when  von  Bissing  read  it,  or  heard  of  it, 
furious  with  rage,  he  dictated  a  terrible  letter  and,  con- 
sulting no  one,  sent  it  out  at  once  to  Malines  by  a  Ger- 
man chaplain.  When  Baron  von  der  Lancken  heard  of 
this  it  seems  that  he  at  once  went  to  von  Bissing,  told  him 
he  had  made  a  mistake — that  the  Cardinal  would  find 
means  of  publishing  the  letter  in  the  outside  world,  to 
the  detriment  of  Germany.  The  wrath  of  the  old  Prus- 
sian had  cooled  somewhat  and  all  afternoon  they  kept 
the  road  between  Brussels  and  Malines  hot  with  aides 
and  orderlies  trying  to  overtake  the  chaplain  and  to  re- 
cover the  imprudent  letter  before  it  could  be  delivered  to 
the  Cardinal.  I  asked  at  the  Politische  Abteilung  the 
next  morning  whether  the  speeding  almoner  had  reached 

564 


VIOLATIONS  OF  THE  CONVENTION 

Malines  in  time,  and  with  a  droll  expression  of  relief  the 
Baron  replied: 

"Non;  le  del  lui  a  envoi/e  une  bonne  panne  en  route, 
et  nous  avons  pw  Vattraper  avant  qu'il  narrivdt  a  Ma- 
lines." 

I  do  not  know  whether  the  state  of  the  road  between 
Brussels  and  Malines  was  responsible  for  the  bonne 
panne  or  not;  the  roads  in  Belgium  are  not  famous  for 
their  smoothness,  since  they  are  paved  with  stubborn 
Belgian  blocks,  and  these  had  been  displaced  by  the 
cannons  that  had  been  hauled  over  them  for  half  a  year. 
It  was  about  this  time  that  the  German  authorities  or- 
dered the  city  of  Brussels  to  reconstruct  the  road  from 
Malines  to  Brussels.  The  municipal  authorities  at  once 
refused,  saying  that  they  had  no  power  under  the  Bel- 
gian law  to  use  the  city's  moneys  for  works  outside  the 
city's  limits — which  was,  of  course,  incontestable,  but 
that  besides  this  objection  there  was  another — namely, 
that  the  road  would  be  used  for  military  purposes  by 
Belgium's  enemies.  After  menacing  Burgomaster  Lem- 
onnier  with  arrest  and  I  know  not  what  else  besides,  the 
German  authorities  imposed  a  fine  of  500,000  marks  on 
the  city  of  Brussels.  The  authorities  protested  again 
on  the  ground  that  the  Convention  providing  for  the 
original  levy  on  the  city  had  stated  that  it  was  to  be  in 
lieu  of  all  contributions. 

The  German  authorities  replied  to  this  protest,  de- 
fending themselves  on  the  charge  of  having  broken  their 
promise  not  to  levy  any  more  contributions  on  the  city 
of  Brussels  by  saying  that  this  was  not  strictly  a  contri- 
bution, but  a  "military  necessity,"  and  that  while  they 
recognized  the  fact  that  the  municipality  of  Brussels  had 
not  the  right  to  use  the  money  of  the  city  for  the  purpose 

565 


BELGIUM 

of  building  a  road  beyond  the  limits  of  the  city,  they 
would  have  to  do  so  because  people  elsewhere  in  Belgium 
refused  to  work  for  the  Germans — a  non  sequitur  that 
may  have  served  as  well  as  any  other  excuse  for  what 
they  wished  to  do. 

It  may  have  been  something  that  they  made  any  ex- 
cuse at  all,  since  it  was  the  fourth  time  that  the  Germans 
had  broken  their  original  Convention.  The  theory,  or 
the  phrase,  "military  necessity,"  was  invoked  in  any 
exigency,  in  the  naive  confidence  that  it  carried  the  same 
convincing  weight  with  the  rest  of  mankind  that  it  did 
with  Germans.  When  the  German  troops  entered  Brus- 
sels, the  city  and  the  communes  of  the  agglomeration,  as 
I  have  said,  were  summoned  to  pay,  as  a  contribution  of 
war,  the  sum  of  fifty  millions  of  francs.  This  amount, 
after  discussion  with  the  municipal  authorities,  was  re- 
duced by  the  Germans  to  forty-five  millions;  and  the 
twelfth  of  October  a  convention  was  drawn  up,  signed 
by  the  Military  Governor  in  the  name  of  the  German 
authorities,  and  by  the  City  of  Brussels,  in  which  it  was 
stipulated:  "The  indemnity  thus  paid  by  Greater  Brus- 
sels being  forty-five  millions  of  francs,  it  is  understood 
that  there  will  not  be  imposed,  either  directly  or  indi- 
rectly, any  new  contribution  on  the  inhabitants  of 
Greater  Brussels.  In  case,  however,  that  a  criminal  at- 
tempt should  be  made  against  the  German  troops  there 
will  be  imposed  on  the  communes  of  the  agglomeration, 
in  the  territory  where  the  attempt  was  committed,  a 
contribution,  or  some  other  punishment.^ 

^  "L'indemnite  ainsi  payee  par  ragglomeration  bruxelloise  etant 
de  quarante  cinq  millions  (45,000,000)  de  francs,  il  est  entendu 
qu'il  ne  sera  plus  impose,  ni  directement  ni  indirectement,  de  nou- 
velle  contribution  aux  habitants  de  I'agglomeration  bruxelloise. 

566 


VIOLATIONS  OF  THE  CONVENTION 

This  Convention  was  negotiated  between  M.  Lemon- 
nier,  the  Acting  Burgomaster  of  Brussels,  and  Herr  von 
Schwabach,  as  the  representative  of  the  German  au- 
thorities. In  discussing  the  clause  relative  to  the  crimi- 
nal attack,  M.  Lemonnier  remarked  to  Herr  von  Schwa- 
bach that  this  clause  should  not  be  made  to  cover  any 
deed  of  violence  except  one  undertaken  deliberately  by 
a  considerable  portion  of  the  population ;  that  is  to  say, 
that  if  an  insane  person,  or  some  assassin,  should  strike 
at  a  German  soldier,  it  should  not  be  considered  as  jus- 
tifying the  application  of  this  clause.  Herr  von  Schwa- 
bach stated  that  he  was  in  accord  with  this  view  of  the 
matter,  that  the  clause  meant  an  attack  on  German 
troops  and  nothing  else.  A  few  days  after,  however, 
in  that  same  month  of  October,  a  German  detective  or 
policeman  in  civil  attire  tried  to  arrest  a  newsdealer, 
and,  the  newsdealer  resisting,  there  was  a  scuffle.  Two 
Brussels  policemen  ran  to  the  scene  and  in  the  scramble 
the  German  detective  was  injured.  Thereupon  the  two 
Belgian  policemen,  de  Ryckers  and  Seghers,  were  ar- 
rested, tried  before  a  German  court  martial  behind 
closed  doors  without  any  one  to  defend  them,  and  con- 
demned, de  Ryckers  to  five  years'  and  Seghers  to  three 
years'  imprisonment.  The  Military  Governor,  announc- 
ing this^  condemnation  to  the  city  authorities  of  Brussels, 
wrote  that  de  Ryckers  had  been  condemned  for  an  as- 
sault on  a  German  functionary,  and  for  having  attacked 
a  German  soldier.  Therefore,  because  a  soldier  had  been 
attacked,  said  the  Military  Governor,  the  punishment 

"Dans  le  cas,  cependant,  ou  un  attentat  criminel  serait  commis 
centre  des  troupes  allemandes,  on  imposera  a  la  commune  de  I'ag- 
glomeration,  dans  le  territoire  de  laquelle  I'attentat  a  ete  commis, 
une  contribution  ou  une  autre  punition  quelconque." 

567 


BELGIUM 

mentioned  in  Article  II  of  the  Convention  of  the 
twelfth  of  October  applied,  and  the  city  of  Brussels  was 
fined  five  million  francs. 

By  a  somewhat  too  evident  coincidence  the  five  mil- 
lion francs  was  precisely  the  amount  by  which  the  orig- 
inal contribution  had  been  reduced ;  and  as  a  final  touch, 
almost  artistic.  Burgomaster  Max,  some  time  before 
his  arrest,  having  asked  how  many  detectives  the  Ger- 
mans were  maintaining  in  Brussels,  had  been  officially 
informed  by  the  German  authorities  that  there  were  no 
German  policeman  in  plain  clothes — to  use  our  Amer- 
ican expression,  in  Brussels.  The  soldier,  or  policeman, 
was  not  in  uniform. 

The  city  of  Brussels,  of  course,  protested ;  an  inquiry 
had  revealed  that  the  policemen  had  not  injured  the 
German  secret  agent,  and  the  city  cited  the  original 
Convention,  claimed  that  even  if  the  German  agent  had 
been  wounded,  and  by  Brussels  policemen,  it  could  not 
be  said  that  German  troops  had  been  attacked,  because 
the  agent  was  not  in  uniform.  The  German  authori- 
ties, however,  insisted,  and  the  fine  was  paid. 

This  was  the  first  violation  of  the  Convention  of  Octo- 
ber. The  second  occurred  on  the  sixteenth  of  De- 
cember, when  the  Germans  imposed  a  war  contribution 
of  four  hundred  and  eighty  millions  of  francs  on  the 
provinces  of  Belgium,  to  be  paid  at  the  rate  of  forty- 
two  millions  a  month  from  that  day.  The  convention  of 
the  twelfth  of  October  had  stipulated  that  no  further 
contribution  should  be  imposed  on  the  inhabitants  of 
Brussels ;  Brussels  is  in  Brabant,  and  of  the  fifteen  hun- 
dred thousand  inhabitants  of  Brabant,  seven  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  lived  in  Brussels,  and  were  obliged 
to  pay  their  share  of  the  four  hundred  and  eighty 

568 


VIOLATIONS  OF  THE  CONVENTION 

million  francs,  which  was,  as  it  would  seem  to  most 
minds,  an  indirect  method  of  fining  once  more  the  city 
of  Brussels. 

The  third  violation  of  the  Convention  of  the  twelfth  of 
October  occurred  on  the  sixteenth  of  January,  1915, 
when  the  Governor- General,  as  I  have  already  said,  im- 
posed on  those  Belgians  who  had  left  the  country — ^that 
is,  on  the  refugies^  among  whom,  of  course,  were  many 
inhabitants  of  Greater  Brussels — a  tax  equivalent  to  ten 
times  the  personal  tax  they  paid. 

The  fourth  violation  was  that  of  the  twelfth  of  March, 
1915,  when  the  city  of  Brussels  was  fined  five  hundred 
thousand  marks  for  refusing  to  repair  the  road  from 
Brussels  to  Malines.^  And  all  this  in  addition  to  those 
contributions  that  were  so  frequently  imposed  on  the 
communes  under  the  form  of  condemnation  for  dam- 

*  There  were  many  other  contributions.  When  the  German 
army  arrived  at  Brussels  it  demanded  each  day  for  the  troops 
18,000  kilograms  of  wheat,  10,000  kilograms  of  fresh  meat,  6,000 
kilograms  of  rice,  10,000  kilograms  of  sugar,  72,000  kilograms 
of  oats.  And  similar  requisitions  were  made  in  every  city  through 
which  German  troops  passed.  At  Louvain  the  Germans  requisi- 
tioned two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  francs'  worth  of  preserved 
vegetables ;  at  Malines,  four  million  francs'  worth.  At  Flanders  and 
in  parts  of  Hainaut  they  seized  nearly  all  the  horses  and  beasts  of 
burden  belonging  to  the  farmers,  and  the  little  wheat  and  flour  that 
remained  to  them.  At  the  little  village  of  Middleburg,  notably, 
which  had  only  eight  hundred  and  fifty  inhabitants,  after  having 
furnished  fifty  cows,  thirty-five  pigs  and  1600  kilograms  of  oats, 
was  forced  to  deliver  up  in  January  and  February,  1915,  one  hun- 
dred pigs,  100,000  kilograms  of  wheat,  50,000  kilograms  of  beans 
or  peas,  50,000  kilograms  of  oats,  and  150,000  kilograms  of  straw. 

Everywhere  the  splendid  draft  horses,  tkat  were  the  result 
of  more  than  a  century  of  careful,  scientific  breeding,  were  seized. 
Not  only  did  the  German  army  requisition  the  horses  necessary 

569 


BELGIUM 

ages  which  it  was  said  German  citizens  had  sustained 
when  war  was  declared,  and  to  do  this  the  more  easily 
and  readily  the  Governor-General  had  issued  as  I  have 
shown,  a  decree  changing  the  Belgian  law  which  made 
communes  liable  in  damages  for  the  work  of  mobs. 

to  draw  its  waggons,  to  mount  its  troops,  and  to  serve  in  its  artil- 
lery, but  it  took  away  the  best  of  the  Braban9on  stallions,  which 
were  wholly  useless  for  military  service,  and  sent  them  oflF  to 
Germany. 

German  quartermasters  at  Ghent  and  at  Antwerp  seized  over 
40,000  tons  of  oil-cakes  used  for  feeding  cattle  in  winter;  they 
seized  also  several  hundreds  of  tons  of  phosphates  that  still  existed 
in  Belgium.  They  cut  down  all  the  walnut-trees,  not  only  in  the 
State  forest  but  even  in  private  grounds,  and  used  them  to  make 
the  butts  of  rifles.  All  raw  materials  used  for  Belgian  industry 
were  requisitioned  and  sent  to  Germany;  leather,  hides,  copper, 
wool,  flax,  etc.  Besides  this,  nearly  all  the  machines  and  tools 
were  seized  and  sent  to  Germany,  there  to  be  used,  as  the  Ger- 
man authorities  said,  to  make  munitions  which  Belgian  factories 
had  refused  to  manufacture. 

Enormous  quantities  of  materials  and  products  were  requisi- 
tioned at  Antwerp.  Notably,  there  were  seized:  18,000,000  francs' 
worth  of  cereals ;  about  5,000,000  francs'  worth  of  oil-cakes ;  over 
4,000,000  francs'  worth  of  nitrate;  animal  and  vegetable  oil  to  the 
value  of  2,000,000  francs;  petroleum  and  mineral  oil  worth  3,000,- 
000  francs;  6,000,000  francs'  worth  of  wool;  cotton  in  enormous 
quantities — there  was  taken  from  one  firm  more  than  1,300,000 
francs'  worth;  rubber  to  the  value  of  10,000,000  francs;  up  to 
December  1st,  1914,  copper  valued  at  more  than  20,000,000  francs 
was  seized;  horse-hair  worth  1,500,000  francs;  ivory  worth  800,000 
francs;  wines,  1,100,000  francs.  The  total  amount  requisitioned 
amounted  approximately  to  85,000,000  francs. 

There  was  also  requisitioned  a  large  amount  of  merchandise 
stored  in  the  warehouses,  which  had  been  consigned  to  various 
exporting  and  forwarding  houses.  It  is  impossible  to  place  even 
an  approximate  valuation  on  this  property,  wliich  was  of  many 
different  sorts,  but  its  value  was  enormous. 

570 


LXXIII 

FEEDING  THE  NORTH  OF  FRANCE 

Meanwhile  the  work  of  ravitaillement  was  going  on 
with  those  various  strains,  accidents,  and  crises  that 
marked  its  career  to  the  end.  M.  Francqui  had 
been  permitted  to  make  a  journey  to  Paris,  and  had 
completed  there  certain  of  the  details  relative  to  th^  feed- 
ing of  the  north  of  France.  Then  Mr.  Connett  gave  up 
the  position  as  Director  of  the  C.  R.  B.,  and  was  suc- 
ceeded by  Mr.  Oscar  T.  Crosby,  who,  like  Mr.  Connett, 
was  an  engineer  by  profession.  He  was  a  soldier  too, 
which,  as  he  was  not  fighting  them,  we  felt  would  gain 
him  the  sympathy  of  the  German  officers,  for  he  had 
been  graduated  from  West  Point,  and  had  served  in  the 
Engineer  Corps  of  the  army  for  five  years,  had  resigned, 
and  later  traveled  extensively  in  China  and  the  Far 
East.  Glad  as  we  were  to  have  JNIr.  Crosby,  we  were 
all  sorry  to  see  Mr.  Connett  go.  He  had  quite  won  the 
hearts  of  the  Belgians,  as  well  as  our  own.  He  had  ac- 
complished many  things ;  he  had  perfected  the  organiza- 
tion that  Captain  Lucey  had  so  well  installed,  and  he 
had  done  it  all  quietly  and  gently,  with  tact  and  intelli- 
gence, but,  a  phenomenon  not  uncommon  among  the  men 
in  the  C.  R.  B.,  the  atmosphere  was  too  oppressive  for 
him,  the  "odour  of  invasion"  too  strong;  he  could  not 
endure  it.  At  the  prospect  of  getting  out  he  was  a  happy 
man,  and  as  he  and  Mr.  Crosby  were  dining  with  me 
the  night  before  he  went  away,  he  said : 

571 


BELGIUM 

"The  moment  I  cross  the  Holland  border  I  shall  take 
a  long  inhalation  of  free  air." 

The  work  of  feeding  northern  France  was  under  way, 
the  arrangements  having  been  made  directly,  as  I  have 
said,  between  Mr.  Hoover,  for  the  C.  R.  B.,  and  the 
German  General  Staff.  The  difficulty  was  in  exercising 
the  control;  several  delegates  of  the  C.  R.  B.  had  been 
detailed  for  that  duty,  and  they  had  to  go  about  in 
northern  France,  at  the  very  front,  in  the  midst  often  of 
danger,  and  the  Germans  insisted  that  each  one  of  them 
be  accompanied  constantly,  day  and  night,  by  a  Ger- 
man officer — their  "nurses,"  the  young  men  called  them. 
Such  a  relation  under  the  best  of  circumstances  would 
be  difficult;  under  the  conditions  actually  prevailing  it 
was  almost  intolerable.  The  eyes  of  the  German  offi- 
cers were  never  off  the  C.  R.  B.  delegates ;  they  "watched 
him  when  he  rose  to  eat  and  when  he  knelt  to  pray." 
The  delegates  were  compelled,  too,  to  lift  their  hats 
whenever  a  German  officer  passed,  and  they  had  to  en- 
dure in  silence  the  not  always  delicate  expression  of  th-e 
instinctive  dislike  the  Germans  had  for  America  and 
Americans.  The  Germans  were  forever  bringing  up  the 
question  of  the  shipment  of  munitions,  and  their  attitude 
toward  the  ravitaillement  was  one  that  implied  a  cynical 
suspicion  of  the  motives  of  the  Americans  in  undertak- 
ing the  charitable  work.  It  was  common  for  them  to 
ask  bluntly: 

"What  are  the  Americans  getting  out  of  it?" 

But  the  delegates  of  the  C.  R.  B.  bore  it  all  with  an 
admirable  patience,  and  as  a  result  of  their  voluntary 
services  and  sacrifices,  three  million  French  people  had 
their  daily  bread.  And  that  was  all  the  Americans  got 
out  of  it.     But  the  experience  told  on  the  delegates. 

572 


FEEDING  THE  NORTH  OF  FRANCE 

When  they  returned  for  a  respite  of  a  day  or  two  their 
nerves  would  be  so  affected  that  they  suffered  greatly; 
at  best  they  could  not  endure  it  long.  The  unceasing 
and  often-times  insulting  surveillance  would  be  beyond 
human  power  to  endure.  There  hacve  been  many  exam- 
ples of  courage  and  patience  and  devotion  in  a  war  that 
is  the  most  hideous  and  savage  mankind  has  known,  but 
of  all  there  are  few  more  admirable  than  that  of  the 
young  Americans  of  the  C.  R.  B.  who  served  in  northern 
France. 

The  difficulties  accumulated,  and  on  all  sides.  A  Ger- 
man aeroplane  dropped  a  bomb  on  one  of  the  ships  of 
the  Commission,  accidentally,  the  Germans  afterwards 
explained,  and  as  a  result  it  became  difficult  to  get  ships 
or  sailors  to  cross  the  North  Sea.  England  would  close 
the  sea,  or  Germany  would  close  the  Dutch  frontier,  and 
rumour  would  run  hot-foot  with  the  news  that  one  or 
the  other  were  about  to  stop  the  ravitaillement,  and  all 
these  complications  had  to  be  adjusted,  arranged,  com- 
promised ;  we  lived  with  our  hearts  in  our  mouths.  When 
a  committee,  formed  in  England  to  raise  funds  for  the 
C.  R.  B.,  issued  a  statement  calling  attention  to  the 
deeds  of  the  Germans  in  Belgium  as  responsible  for  the 
plight  of  those  on  behalf  of  whom  the  appeal  was  made, 
the  Germans  were  angry  and  threatened  to  stop  the 
ravitaillement;  when  the  Germans  torpedoed  relief 
ships  the  British  were  angry,  and  threatened  to  stop  it. 
There  was,  to  be  sure,  a  wide  moral  difference  between 
the  two  provocations,  but  there  was  little  difference  in 
their  reaction  on  us. 

Then  the  Germans  complained  that  Mr.  Crosby  had 
been  for  seven  years,  and  until  the  outbreak  of  the  war, 
in  the  service  of  the  Russian  Government,  and  that 

573 


BELGIUM 

therefore  they  could  not  consent  to  his  remaining.  This 
was  not  exact;  Mr.  Crosby  had  never  served  the  Rus- 
sian Government  in  his  life,  and  had  never  served  any 
public  or  private  interest  in  that  country ;  he  had  indeed 
been  in  Russia  but  once,  on  his  way  to  Thibet,  when 
Count  Cassine  objected  to  his  presence  there  or  to  his 
entrance  into  Thibet,  and  again  the  summer  of  1914, 
when,  on  a  trip  around  the  world,  he  was  overtaken  in 
Pekin  by  the  war,  and  hurried  through  Russia  on  his 
way  to  Stockholm,  to  England,  and  so  home.  I  ex- 
plained all  this  to  the  German  authorities,  and  the  ob- 
jections were  withdrawn.  .  .  . 

The  little  Grand  Duchy  of  Luxembourg  was  implor- 
ing us  for  food.  The  people  there  had  foolishly  sold  all 
their  supplies  to  the  Germans  and  Count  d'Ansembourg, 
the  Charge  d' Affaires  for  the  Grand  Duchy  at  Brussels, 
would  come  with  citizens  of  the  Grand  Duchy,  literally 
with  tears  in  their  eyes,  to  implore  of  us  the  aid  we  were 
so  powerless  to  give. 

These  were  but  some  of  the  many  difficulties  that  each 
day  produced;  there  was  always  a  larger  question,  one 
that  went  to  the  principle  of  the  work. 

The  German  administration  had  no  sooner  taken  over 
the  Red  Cross  than  it  was  intimated  that  it  was  about 
to  take  over  the  Department  of  Charity  of  the  Comite 
National.  At  the  time  the  work  was  organized  it  had 
been  agreed  by  the  German  authorities  that  the  C.  N. 
might  receive  and  distribute  certain  sums  in  the  form  of  " 
direct  aid  as  charity.  The  details  had  been  discussed  by 
representatives  of  the  two  sides,  and  an  understanding 
reached,  Villalobar  and  I  having  had  nothing  to  do  with 
the  arrangement.  There  were  in  Belgium  vast  numbers 
of  employees  of  the  Belgian  Government,  ail  the  men 

574 


FEEDING  THE  NORTH  OF  FRANCE 

who  worked  for  the  state  railways,  telegraphs  and  postal 
services,  etc.,  and  these,  refusing  to  work  for  the  Ger- 
mans, were  paid  their  wages  by  the  C.  N. ;  they  were  the 
chomeurs,  or  unemployed.  The  sums  dispensed  were,  of 
course,  enormous,  and  it  all  excited  the  suspicion,  if  not 
the  cupidity,  of  the  military  influence  which  was  always 
paramount. 

The  apprehension  of  interference  was  not  groundless. 
One  day  the  Comite  National  received  a  letter  from  Dr. 
von  Sandt,  chief  of  the  Zivilverwaltung,  complaining  of 
two  incidents  that  had  occurred  in  the  Department  of 
Charities;  that,  first,  the  section  of  agriculture  had  sent 
out  a  circular  in  which  there  was  some  covert  criticism 
or,  if  not  criticism,  a  phrase  that  might  be  construed  as 
criticism,  of  the  Germans.  The  other  complaint  was  of 
the  department  which  furnished  aid  to  the  wives  and 
children  of  officers  in  the  Belgian  army;  Dr.  von  Sandt 
said  that  this  aid  could  be  given  henceforth  in  kind,  not 
in  money. 

In  an  organization  so  thorough  and  so  complicated  as 
that  of  the  Germans  it  was  not  surprising  that  the 
Zivilverwaltung  should  not  have  known  that  the  section 
of  agriculture  had  been  organized  by  General  vdu  Bis- 
sing  himself,  and  that  it  had  sent  out  the  offending  cir- 
cular itself  in  December,  before  the  section  was  taken 
over  by  the  Comite  National,  and  that  the  Comite 
therefore  could  not  be  held  responsible  for  its  criticisms ; 
and  as  to  the  wives  of  Belgian  officers,  "We  can't  say," 
remarked  one  of  the  Comite  National,  "to  the  wife  of  a 
Belgian  General,  'Madame,  if  you  need  a  chemise  you 
need  only  to  come  and  ask  us.'  " 

We  did  not,  however,  go  into  these  details ;  it  had  been 
understood  that  communications  should  be  addressed  to 

575 


BELGIUM 

the  committee  through  the  intermediary  of  Villalobar 
and  me,  and  this  fact  was  called  to  the  attention  of  Dr. 
von  Sandt  with  the  observation  that  evidently  some  mis- 
take had  been  made.  This  had  the  effect  of  limiting 
the  discussion  of  all  such  questions  thereafter  to  the 
Baron  von  der  Lancken  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  two 
patron  Ministers  on  the  other;  that  is,  theoretically  it 
had  this  effect ;  there  was  always  some  one  somewhere  in 
the  amazing  labyrinth  of  the  German  organization  who 
wished  to  have  a  finger  in  the  pie. 

The  work  was  a  beautiful  one  and  the  organization 
superb,  as  the  Germans  indeed,  privately,  though  I  think 
never  publicly,  admitted.  The  National  Committee  had 
taken  all  the  existing  charitable  organizations  in  Bel- 
gium and  united  them  under  its  segis,  and  this  seemed  to 
excite  the  suspicion  of  the  Germans,  or  of  some  of  them, 
who  said  that  these  charitable  organizations  were  polit- 
ical organizations  in  disguise.  Nothing,  of  course,  could 
be  further  from  the  truth,  but  there  was  no  way  of  argu- 
ing with  those  who  had  this  idea  once  in  their  heads, 
and  no  way  of  dislodging  it.  The  Germans  were  always 
haunted  by  a  fear  that  the  Comite  National  might  de- 
velop into  a  rival,  become  a  government  within  a  gov- 
ernment, wielding  a  powerful  influence  all  over  Bel- 
gium. They  made  no  objection  whatever  to  the  ravi- 
taillement.  This  they  found  satisfactory  and  were  pre- 
pared "loyally  and  honestly"  to  respect  all  assurances 
given  in  that  regard.  But  what  the  Governor- General 
wished  to  do,  apparently,  was  to  take  over  this  secours 
as  he  had  taken  over  the  Red  Cross,  and  to  this  Villalo- 
bar and  I  objected,  reminding  them  of  the  various  as- 
surances they  had  given.  There  was  much  discussion  as 
to  the  extent  of  the  engagements  the  Germans  had  taken 

576 


FEEDING  THE  NORTH  OF  FRANCE 

as  to  the  funds  to  be  used  by  the  Comite  National.  They 
had  indeed  been  negotiated  chiefly,  as  I  believe,  by  Mr. 
Heineman  with  the  Geheimrath  Kaufman,  and  they 
seepied  ample  to  cover  all  forms  of  secours,  but  when 
the  subject  was  again  under  discussion  and  these  assur- 
ances were  recalled,  the  Geheimrath  Kaufman  cited  as 
applicable  to  the  situation  the  old,  and  it  would  seem 
very  characteristic,  German  proverb : 

"You  never  eat  your  food  as  hot  as  you  cook  it." 

It  was  a  critical  moment,  and  the  problem  bristled 
with  difficulties.  There  were  endless  conferences  and  in- 
terminable discussions  that  lasted  over  a  month — con- 
ferences at  our  Legation  with  the  Belgians,  who  asked 
only  to  be  permitted  to  use  their  own  money  to  succor 
the  woes  of  the  women  and  children  of  the  poor  and 
homeless  of  their  own  stricken  land;  conferences  in  the 
yellow  salon  of  the  Ministere  de  I'lndustrie,  overlooking 
the  Park,  where  the  sun  was  golden  among  the  trees 
then  all  green  with  spring,  with  the  Baron  von  der 
Lancken,  Count  Harrach,  and  usually  one  of  the  Herp 
Doktors  or  Herr  Professors. 

When  the  Governor-General  went  to  Berlin  for  a 
few  days,  the  atmosphere  seemed  somehow  conducive 
to  compromise  and  settlement,  and  it  was  arranged  that 
the  German  authorities  should  have  the  right  to  be  in- 
formed as  to  what  was  done  by  the  Department  of 
Secours. 

We  had  the  impression,  indeed,  at  that  time,  that 
the  Governor- General  did  not  wholly  understand  the 
work  of  relief;  certainly  he  did  not  understand  the  or- 
ganization and  the  work  of  the  C.  R.  B.,  for  just  as  we 
were  beginning  to  draw  a  sigh  of  relief  over  the  set- 
tlement of  the  difficulties  in  the  C.  N.  there  came  a  long 

577 


BELGIUM 

telegram  from  Mr.  Hoover  saying  that  an  interview 
with  von  Bissing  had  been  printed  in  the  Staats  Zeitungy 
of  New  York,  saying  that  the  work  of  America  in  Bel- 
gium was  not  a  charity  at  all,  but  a  business,  if  not  some- 
thing worse.  Mr.  Hoover  threatened  to  stop  the  whole 
enterprise — ^unless  I  could  see  the  old  satrap  and  have 
a  denial  made. 

We  had  only  extracts  of  the  offending  interview  of 
the  Governor-General,  and  when  the  newspapers  from 
home  had  time  to  get  across  the  sea  to  Belgium  nearly  a 
month  had  elapsed.  A  month  can  accomplish  wonders 
in  the  way  of  allaying  anger  and  irritation,  and  when  at 
last  we  had  ihe  amazing  statement  in  its  fulness  before 
us,  we  were  rather  glad  that  we  had  had  only  extracts, 
and  that,  after  several  conversations  with  the  Baron  von 
der  Lancken,  I  had  been  able  to  obtain  a  satisfactory 
expression  from  the  Governor-General,  so  that  the  inci- 
dent was  already  closed.  What  had  offended  Mr. 
Hoover  was  the  reference  to  the  C.  R.  B. 

There  were  not  only  interviews,  but  pictures  of  von 
Bissing  benevolently  standing  in  the  Art  Museum  be- 
side a  marble  statue  of  Hercules  and  the  Hermes  of 
Praxiteles,  or  sitting  in  the  Belgian  senate,  piously  lis- 
tening to  the  preaching  of  some  German  pastor.  In  the 
interview  he  told  how  he  was  ruling  Belgium,  referring 
to  it  as  a  country  that  had  been  badly  governed — Bel- 
gium, with  its  communal  system,  its  democracy,  its  lib- 
erty, its  peace,  contentment  and  prosperity! — and  he 
spoke  of  his  efforts  to  "revive"  the  country,  to  open  the 
museums,  to  encourage  agriculture,  etc. 

The  museums  had  been  opened,  it  was  true,  but  by 
German  order  and  against  the  will  of  their  directors. 
Le  Musee  Moderne  was  open  the  first  three,  and  le 

578 


M 


FEEDING  THE  NORTH  OF  FRANCE 

Musee  des  Beaux  Arts  the  last  three  days  of  the  week ; 
German  sentinels  with  guns  and  bayonets  were  at  every 
door,  and  the  vast  halls  were  empty,  for  never  a  self- 
respecting  Belgian  would  enter  them  so  long  as  he  had 
to  pass  German  sentinels  and  rub  elbows  with  German 
soldiers  within  the  museum.  What  was  more  remark- 
able was  the  reference  in  the  interview  to  the  resumption 
of  life  in  Belgium.  But  there  was  no  resumption  of  life 
in  Belgium.  The  people  would  long  since  have  starved 
if  America  had  not  organized  the  Commission  and  got 
food  over  the  seas  to  them.  Von  Bissing  had  very  lit- 
tle to  do  with  that ;  he  had  not  greatly  helped  it,  save  as 
he  confirmed  and  enlarged  the  former  guaranties,  and 
at  that  time  he  did  not  seem  even  to  understand  it.  In- 
deed, while  he  was  absent  in  Berlin  and  being  inter- 
viewed, his  staff  officers  were  preparing  a  statement  to 
lay  before  him  so  that  he  might  know  what  the  ravitaille- 
ment  consisted  of,  and  what  was  being  done  by  it. 

He  had  printed  affiches  urging  that  industry  be  re- 
vived, and  the  interview  stated  that  it  had  been  revived; 
but  there  was  no  industry  in  the  country.  The  Ger- 
mans, indeed,  were  having  all  the  machinery  taken  out 
of  the  factories  and  sent  to  Germany.  There  could  be  no 
imports  because  of  the  blockade,  and  nothing  could  be 
exported  unless  it  went  to  Germany.  Industry  was  lit- 
erally impossible  because  there  were  no  raw  materials. 
Forty-thousand  men  working  in  the  gun  factories  at 
Liege  had  refused  to  work;  the  mines  had  been  seized  by 
the  German  authorities  because  they  wanted  the  coal. 
Belgium,  in  fact,  had  tacitly  declared  a  general  strike  as 
a  protest  against  German  aggression. 

As  for  agriculture,  Belgium  was  already  the  most 
densely  populated  country  in  the  world,  and  the  most 

579 


BELGIUM 

intensively  and  scientifically  cultivated ;  there  was  noth- 
ing that  von  Bissing  or  any  one  could  teach  the  Belgians 
in  that  department.  The  seeds  that  were  being  used 
were  sent  by  the  American  Commission.  They  were 
planted  by  the  patient  peasants  in  their  fields  and,  after 
the  order  of  nature,  spring  had  come,  these  seeds  were 
bursting,  unconscious  apparently  that  an  elderly  Ger- 
man general  of  cavalry  was  the  cause  of  the  phenome- 
non. The  sap  was  pulsing  in  the  trees;  nature,  in  her 
august  indifference  to  forms  of  government  and  the 
quarrels  of  men,  was  serenely  carrying  on  her  mysteri- 
ous processes. 

The  Germans  were  cutting  down  the  trees,  denuding 
the  forests,  using  the  wood  to  make  roads  for  cannons 
and  covers  for  trenches  and  stocks  for  rifles.  Even  the 
boughs  of  the  fir-trees  were  utilized ;  they  made,  it  was 
said,  an  excellent  camouflage.  The  Germans  had  taken 
much  of  the  live  stock  in  the  country,  most  of  the  fine 
horses  and  the  fine  breeds  of  dogs,  and  sent  them  to 
Germany. 

We  were  all  relieved,  and,  if  it  were  a  word  with  a 
place  any  more  in  this  world,  I  should  add  that  we  were 
happy,  in  the  receipt  of  a  telegram  from  Mr.  Hoover 
bearing  the  good  news  that  there  was  enough  food  to 
last  until  August  fifteenth.  We  were  not  happy  long, 
however,  for  when  the  explanatory  letter  that  follows 
all  telegrams  arrived,  it  informed  us  that  August  fif- 
teenth was  placed  as  a  period  when  the  ravitaillement 
would  come  to  an  end,  unless  the  Germans  should  yield 
to  a  demand  about  to  be  made  by  the  English  Govern- 
ment, that  the  forthcoming  harvest  in  Belgium  be  not 
seized  by  the  Germans.  We  all  felt  like  applying  to 
the  Countess  of  our  acquaintance  whose  chateau  near 

580 


FEEDING  THE  NORTH  OF  FRANCE 

Brussels  had  been  requisitioned  and  transformed  into 
a  hospital  for  neurasthenic  German  officers  just  out  of 
the  trenches. 

But  then  there  was  a  despatch  from  Washington,  with 
a  touching  letter  the  Belgian  Minister  there,^  M.  Have- 
nith,  had  handed  Mr.  Bryan,  expressing  the  gratitude 
of  the  Belgian  Government  to  the  American  Minister 

^  The  letter  delivered  by  M.  Havenith,  the  Belgian  Minister  at 
Washington,  to  the  State  Department,  was  as  follows: 

Legation  De  Belgique, 

Washington,  D.  C. 
Excellency,  Washington,  March  17,  1915. 

I  have  been  directed  by  the  Belgian  Minister  for  Foreign  Af- 
fairs to  forward  to  Your  Excellency  the  expression  of  deep  grati- 
tude which  my  Government  owes  to  His  Excellency  Brand  Whit- 
lock,  American  Minister  to  Belgium,  for  the  repeated  efforts  he 
has  made  in  order  to  alleviate  the  heavy  burden  laid  upon  Belgium, 
and  especially  upon  Brussels,  as  a  consequence  of  the  German 
occupation.  The  Belgian  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs  has  already 
extended  to  Mr.  Brand  Whitlock  his  sincerest  thanks  for  the  pre- 
cious help  he  was  able  to  give  to  the  unfortunate  Belgian  popu- 
lation. 

My  Government  has  instructed  me  to  inform  Your  Excellency 
that  Mr.  Brand  Whitlock's  activities,  under  different  conditions, 
have  been  beyond  all  praise.  On  many  occasions  the  firm  atti- 
tude adopted  by  him  reminded  the  occupying  authorities  of  the 
respect  due  to  international  conventions. 

The  Belgian  Government  wishes  me  to  associate  the  staff  of  the 
American  Legation  in  its  official  expression  of  gratitude  toward 
the  American  representative  in  Brussels,  His  Excellency  Mr.  Brand 
Whitlock. 

Accept,  Sir,  the  renewed  assurances  of  my  highest  consideration. 

E.  Havenith. 
His  Excellency, 
W.  J.  Bryan, 

Secretary  of  State. 

581 


BELGIUM 

at  Brussels  and  a  group  of  women  from  Laeken  had 
come  in  tears  to  present  to  me  one  of  the  flour  sacks  that 
had  brought  them  wheat  from  America,  a  flour  sack  in 
which,  with  their  own  hands,  they  had  embroidered  ex- 
pressions of  their  appreciation.  And  so,  some  way 
would  have  to  be  found  tp  save  the  crop  to  the  Belgians 
who  had  planted  it. 


LXXIV 

ESCAPING  AT  THE  FRONTIEE 

It  was  indeed  difficult  even  for  that  hope  which  is  an 
element  of  the  phenomenon  of  spring,  working  myste- 
riously in  man  as  a  part  of  nature,  to  preserve  itself 
animate  in  such  an  atmosphere.  It  was  as  though  the 
atmosphere  had  been  poisoned  by  those  gas-bombs  of 
which  we  were  just  beginning  to  hear.  We  heard  of 
them  first  from  the  Germans  themselves,  who,  on  the 
tenth  of  April  posted  an  affiche  stating  that  the  French 
were  employing  a  new  kind  of  bomb  containing  an  as- 
phyxiating gas  which  rendered  its  victims  insensible. 
The  Germans  were  pained  and  surprised,  even  horri- 
fied; they  said  that  it  was  barbarous  for  the  French  to 
do  such  a  thing.  Then  three  weeks  later,  on  the  twenty- 
eighth  of  April,  we  read  in  the  newspapers  that  came  in 
from  the  outside  the  accounts  of  the  asphyxiating  bombs 
used  by  the  Germans  at  Hill  60  near  Ypres — for  the 
first  time,  I  believe,  in  human  history.  Not  only  was 
there  the  constant  outrage  of  that  sense  of  justice  which 
lives  in  most  men  who  have  known  liberty,  but  there  was 
every  day  some  new  and  concrete  instance  of  injustice, 
or,  if  not  always  that,  of  indelicacy,  T^ich,  according 
to  Talleyrand,  is  worse  than  crime. 

Nothing  was  too  small,  too  petty,  for  the  official  no- 
tice of  the  Government  of  Occupation.  It  had  the  no- 
tion, everywhere  the  mark  of  immature  development, 
that  every  inexact  statement,  no  matter  how  trivial,  must 
be  pursued  and  himted  down.    It  spent  much  time  in 

583 


BELGIUM 

denials  and  explanations;  long,  elaborate,  puerile  dis- 
cussions were  posted  on  the  walls  and  published  in  the 
censored  Press.  Qui  s  excuse,  s'accuse.  When  the 
American  newspapers  published  a  story  to  the  effect 
that  a  German  officer  in  a  Brussels  restaurant  had  ob- 
jected to  my  speaking  English,  and  that  I  had  risen  and 
with  a  bow  and  a  flourish  handed  him  my  card,  precisely, 
of  course,  as  it  would  be  done  in  the  cinema,  the  authori- 
ties asked  me  to  issue  a  formal  denial  and  were  non- 
plussed when  I  declined  to  do  so ;  having  read  Treitschke 
more  deeply  than  Emerson,  they  could  not  understand 
the  attitude. 

Some  such  adventure,  indeed,  had  befallen  the  Amer- 
ican Consul  at  Ghent,  but  I  told  them  that  Ministers 
were  sometimes  confused  with  Consuls,  especially  in  my 
country,  and  that  in  any  event  the  story  was  not  worth 
denying;  that  in  four  days  it  would  be  forgotten  in  the 
new  interest  that  would  be  taken  in  a  later  inexactitude, 
and  a  denial  would  serve  only  to  introduce  it  to  all  those 
who  had  not  seen  the  original  story. 

They  found  it  difficult  indeed  to  understand  why  the 
American  Government  could  not  control  and  regulate 
the  American  Press ;  they  frequently  asked  me  if  some- 
thing could  not  be  done,  and  seemed  unable  to  compre- 
hend when  I  explained  that  our  Press  had  no  censorship 
whatever. 

"Freedom!"   said   Count   H one   day,   with   a 

sneer  at  the  word.  "It's  not  our  way;  and  as  for  democ- 
racy— ^we  want  none  of  it." 

One  of  the  members  of  the  Rockefeller  Commission, 
after  returning  to  America,  had  reported  in  an  inter- 
view that  at  Dinant  the  Germans  had  shot  the  Director 
or  Cashier  of  the  Banque  Nationale  de  Belgique,  and  his 

584 


ESCAPING  AT  THE  FRONTIER 

two  sons,  because  they  refused  to  open  the  safe  at  the 
bank.  The  German  authorities,  much  distressed,  re- 
proached me  with  the  inaccuracy  of  the  statement  and 
wished  me  to  have  it  denied.  I  decHned,  and  in  their 
methodical  way,  they  proceeded  to  the  denial  them- 
selves. A  certain  German  official  summoned  a  responsi- 
ble official  of  the  Banque  Nationale  before  him  and 
asked: 

"Is  it  true  that  the  Director  of  the  Banque  Nationale 
at  Dinant  and  his  two  sons  were  shot  by  the  German 
soldiers  for  having  refused  to  open  the  safe?" 

Now  the  fact  was,  as  all  Belgium  knew,  M.  Wasseige 
and  his  two  sons  had  been  shot  by  German  soldiers  at 
Dinant  for  having  refused  to  open  the  safe,  not  of  a 
branch  of  the  Banque  Nationale,  but  of  a  branch  of 
the  Societe  Generale,  of  which  M.  Wasseige  was  Cash- 
ier; the  Banque  Nationale  had  no  succursale  at  Dinant, 
and  the  official  under  interrogation  began  to  explain  this 
fact  and  to  say  that  it  was  the  Director  of  the  branch 
of  the  Societe  Generale,  who,  with  his  two  sons,  had  been 
shot,  when  the  German  official  interrupted  him,  refused 
to  accept  this  response,  and  told  him  that  he  was  not  to 
reply  beside  the  question  (a  Cote  de  la  question)  but  was 
simply  to  answer,  yes  or  no,  the  question  whether  the 
Director  of  the  Banque  Nationale  at  Dinant  and  his 
sons,  had  been  killed.  Limiting  the  question  to  that 
categorical  form,  the  bank  official  could  only  reply,  of 
course,  that  he  would  have  to  say  no,  and  the  German 
authorities  thereupon  sent  out  this  statement  to  contra- 
dict the  story  that  had  been  published  as  coming  from 
the  Rockefeller  Commission. 

The  German  censor  seemed  to  read  all  the  letters  in 
the  post.    The  Political  Department  complained  to  me 

585 


BELGIUM 

of  a  letter  which  the  Legation  had  posted ;  it  was  the  most 
innocent  thing  imaginable,  a  response  to  some  inquiry 
concerning  the  health  of  an  old  lady.  And  one  day  an 
officer  actually  brought  to  me  a  letter  written  by  a  clerk 
in  the  Legation  to  a  man  in  Liege,  with  the  objection 
that  there  was  a  statement  in  the  letter  that  the  Ger- 
mans could  not  approve!  It  was  done  with  apologies, 
to  be  sure,  but — ''ce  sont  les  militaires  qui  Vexigent,'* 
the  officer  explained.  The  censor  for  the  C.  R.  B.'s 
correspondence,  Count  von  somebody,  delivering  to 
Mr.  Crosby,  the  Director,  a  letter  which  Mr.  Crosby's 
daughter,  had  written  to  him  from  Rome,  observed: 

"That  is  a  very  interesting  letter  of  your  daughter's; 
I  enjoyed  reading  it." 

Again,  my  friend  Mr.  Edward  Riley  went  to  the 
Pass-Zentrale  to  reclaim  a  pocketbook  which  he  had 
inadvertently  left  there  the  day  before,  and,  in  asking 
if  it  had  been  found,  remarked: 

"There  is  a  letter  in  it  that  I  prize." 

"Oh,  yes,  I  know,"  the  officer  said,  most  politely;  "I 
read  it." 

These  were  trivialities,  but  there  were  other  incidents 
with  more  formidable  consequences.  Thus  a  young  girl, 
the  Countess  Helene  de  Jonghe,  who  lived  across  the 
street  from  us,  a  girl  of  sixteen  with  her  hair  still  down 
her  back,  a  mere  "flapper,"  as  the  English  would  say — 
walking  with  some  of  her  young  girl  companions  along 
the  Boulevard  du  Regent,  "pres  des  ecuries  de  mon 
Roir  as  she  said,  with  a  proud  and  defiant  toss  of  her 
head  before  a  court  martial  a  few  days  later — saw  two 
German  officers.  One  of  them,  the  Count  Metternich, 
scion  of  an  old  family,  had  often  been  in  Brussels  before 

586 


ESCAPING  AT  THE  FRONTIER 

the  war  and  had  been  a  guest  in  the  home  of  the  girl* 
Seeing  him  she  said  to  her  companions : 

"Voila  encore  un  sale  Prusseinr 

The  officer  heard  the  remark,  as  doubtless  it  was  in- 
tended he  should,  turned,  seized  the  girl  by  the  arm  and 
took  her  to  the  Kommandantur,  where  she  was  interro- 
gated and  released.  The  next  day  she  was  again  sum- 
moned to  the  Kommandantur ;  a  great  affair  was  made 
of  it,  and  when  she  went  home  from  the  Kommandantur 
and  related  her  adventure,  the  old  Countess,  her  grand- 
mother, flamed  up  and  wrote  a  letter,  in  no  gentle  terms, 
to  the  German  authorities.  Then  she,  too,  was  ordered 
to  appear,  and,  with  her  little  granddaughter,  haled  be- 
fore a  court  martial  composed  of  I  know  not  how  many 
officers,  all  in  uniform  and  decorations,  and  there  tried. 

"Stand  up!"  they  ordered  the  grandmother.  She  re- 
fused. .  .  .  When  asked  her  name  she  replied: 

''Je  demande  de  savoir  le  voire/'  and  then  said  to 
them: 

"^ Envoy ez-moi  voire  BissingT 

There  was  no  lawyer  to  defend  them.  The  young 
officer  was  there  as  an  accuser.  He  stood  behind  them, 
as  was  the  custom  for  accusing  witnesses  before  the 
courts  martial,  and  the  grandmother  reproached  him  for 
not  facing  them.  He  testified  that  the  girl  had  called 
him  '^un  cochon  allemand\," 

"Vous  meniezr  cried  the  spirited  girl. 

The  dowager  was  wholly  intractable  at  the  trial. 
When  the  German  officers  arose,  solemnly  held  up  their 
right  hands  to  take  the  oath,  she  laughed  in  harsh  de- 
rision. 

*'Ha!  ha!  .  .  .  Le  sermeni  allemandr  she  said. 

587 


BELGIUM 

The  Germans  were  of  course  furious.  And  she  con- 
tinued to  taunt  them  thus  throughout  the  trial. 

One  can  imagine  the  scene.  ...  A  bench  of  German 
officers  in  uniforms  and  decorations,  and  the  elderly 
Countess,  whose  husband  had  been  Minister  at  Vienna 
in  his  time,  sitting  there  taunting  them,  and  the  little 
girl,  the  cause  of  it  all,  troubled  but  courageous,  and 
the  young  nobleman  of  the  ancient  name,  much  embar- 
rassed by  his  situation.  .  .  . 

Hermancito,  who  always  had  all  the  gossip,  had  heard 
that  the  nobleman  had  not  meant  to  carry  the  thing  so 
far ;  that  he  had  regretted  the  incident,  and  indeed  tried 
to  have  the  Countess  and  the  little  girl  released,  but  that 
von  Bissing  was  determined;  the  German  uniform  had 
been  insulted,  it  was  necessary  to  make  an  example,  and 
if  the  nobleman  did  not  prosecute  the  business  to  a  con- 
clusion he  would  be  expelled  from  the  officers'  club.  It 
was  the  fetich  of  militarism;  "the  uniform  had  been  in- 
sulted" ;  it  was  as  though  an  altar  had  been  violated. 

And  so  when  the  trial  was  over  the  girl  was  condemned 
to  three  months'  imprisonment  in  Germany,  and  her 
grandmother,  the  old  Countess,  to  four  months.^ 

*  The  official  German  account  of  the  incident  was  as  follows : 

CoNDAMNATION 

Le  25  mai  IQIS,  a  I'avenue  du  Regent,  a  Bruxelles,  un  officier 
allemand  entendit  des  cris  de  "sale  Prussien"  partir  d'un  groupe 
de  dames.  Apres  que  ces  dames  eurent  pro  fere  d'autres  injures 
de  meme  genre,  I'une  d'elles.  Mile,  la  Comtesse  Helene  de  Jonghe 
d'Ardoye,  agee  de  16  ans,  passa  tout  pres  de  I'officier  en  criant  de 
nouveau  "sale  Prussien!"  L'officier  fit  conduire  la  comtesse  devant 
I'officier  judiciaire  de  la  Kommandantur  imperiale.  Mme.  la  Com- 
tesse Valentine  de  Jonghe,  grand'mere  de  Mile.  Helene  de  Jonghe, 
exigea  alors  imperieusement  de  cet  officier  qu'il  la  laissat  assister 

588 


ESCAPING  AT  THE  FRONTIER 

"C'est  monstrueux!  C'est  inimaginahler  exclaimed  an 
old  Belgian  nobleman  who  had  once  been  a  friend  of 

a  I'interrogatoire  de  sa  petite-fille.  L'officier  judicaire  lui  fit  re- 
marquer  poliment,  mais  energiquement,  que  lui  seul  avait  a  decider 
qui  pouvait  assister  a  I'interrogatoire  d'une  accusee;  il  envoya  en- 
suite  Mme.  la  Comtesse  dans  Tantichambre  et  interrogea  Mile. 
Helene  de  Jonghe  en  presence  de  sa  demoiselle  de  compagnie. 
Dans  I'antichambre,  Mme.  Valentine  de  Jonghe  se  mit  a  crier  qu'elle 
voulait  qu'on  allat  chercher  le  gouverneur  general  et  le  gouver- 
neur.    Elle  injuria  l'officier  de  justice  et  I'appela  "paysan!" 

Les  deux  comtesses  passerent  pour  injures,  devant  un  tribunal 
de  guerre.  Mile.  Helene  de  Jonghe  declara  qu'elle  avait  voulu  in- 
jurier  un  officier  allemand  quelconque  par  haine  des  Allemands  et 
qu'il  etait  regrettable  que  d'autres  femmes  beiges  n'agissent  pas 
de  meme.  Mme.  la  Comtesse  Valentine  de  Jonghe  se  comporta 
aussi  tres  arrogamment  devant  le  tribunal  et  pendant  la  prestation 
de  serment  des  juges  et  des  temoins,  elle  se  mit  a  rire  pour  montrer 
qu'il  lui  semblait  incroyable  qu'une  dame  de  son  rang  soit  citee 
en  justice  et  y  soit  rendue  responsable  de  ses  injures. 

Mile.  Helene  de  Jonghe  a  ete  condamnee  a  S  mois,  sa  grand'- 
mere  a  4  mois  de  prison  pour  injures.  Toutes  deux  ont  ete  in- 
ternees dans  la  prison  d'Aix-la-Chapelle. 

Translation 

Condemnation 

On  the  25th  of  May,  on  the  avenue  du  Regent,  in  Brussels,  a  Ger- 
man officer  heard  cries  of  "dirty  Prussian"  coming  from  a  group 
of  girls.  After  these  girls  had  offered  other  insults  of  the  same 
kind,  one  of  them,  the  Countess  Helen  de  Jonghe  d'Ardoye,  six- 
teen years  of  age,  passed  very  close  to  the  officer  and  cried  again 
"dirty  Prussian!"  The  officer  had  the  Countess  taken  before  the 
judicial  officer  at  the  Imperial  Kommandantur.  The  Countess 
Valentine  de  Jonghe,  grandmother  of  Helen  de  Jonghe,  then  im- 
periously demanded  of  this  officer  that  he  allow  her  to  be  present 
at  the  interrogatory  of  her  granddaughter.  The  judicial  officer 
politely  but  energetically  told  her  that  it  was  for  him  to  decide 
who  could  be  present  at  the  interrogatory  of  an  accused;  he  there- 

589 


BELGIUM 

the  German  nobleman.  His  eyes  flashed  with  indigna- 
tion. The  affaire  was  the  talk  of  all  Brussels,  and  was 
in  the  newspapers  outside.  It  threatened,  indeed,  to  take 
on  even  more  formidable  proportions,  for  the  Belgian 
nobleman  wrote  a  letter  to  the  Count  M ,  for- 
bidding him  ever  to  salute  him  again  in  the  street,  and 
declaring  that  any  Belgian  who  even  after  the  war 
should  shake  his  hand  would  be  guilty  of  lese-patrio- 
tisme.  ...  And  furthermore,  if  he  himself  was  too  old 
to  fight  for  his  country  as  his  sons  were  doing  he  was  not 

too  old  to  say  to  Count  M that  if  he  were  too 

cowardly  to  go  down  on  the  firing-line  and  fight,  he 
might  do  better  than  to  play  the  spy  on  little  girls  and 
old  ladies  in  Brussels. 

The  defiant  letter  was  sent  by  a  messenger.  The  two 
Countesses,  the  old  and  the  young,  were  taken  off  to 
Germany,  and  it  was  supposed  that  the  affair  was  at  an 

upon  sent  Madame  the  Countess  into  the  antechamber,  and  ques- 
tioned the  young  Countess  in  the  presence  of  her  governess.  In  the 
antechamber  Madame  Valentine  de  Jonghe  began  to  cry  that  she 
wished  them  to  go  and  bring  in  the  Governor-General  and  the 
Governor.  She  insulted  the  officer  of  justice  and  called  him  a 
"peasant." 

The  two  countesses  were  arraigned  for  their  insults  before  a 
military  court.  Helen  de  Jonghe  declared  that  she  had  wished  to 
insult  some  German  officer  on  account  of  her  hatred  of  the  Germans 
and  that  it  was  to  be  regretted  that  other  Belgian  women  did  not  do 
the  same  thing.  The  Countess  Valentine  de  Jonghe,  also  con- 
ducted herself  very  arrogantly  before  the  court,  and  during  the 
swearing  in  of  the  judges  and  the  witnesses,  she  began  to  laugh, 
to  show  that  it  was  imbelievable  to  her  that  a  lady  of  her  rank 
should  be  haled  into  court  and  made  responsible  for  her  insults. 

Helen  de  Jonghe  was  condemned  to  three  months  and  her  grand- 
mother to  four  months  in  prison  for  the  insults.  Both  have  been 
interned  in  the  prison  of  Aix-la-Chapelle. 

590 


ESCAPING  AT  THE  FRONTIER 

end,  but  no,  nothing  was  ever  at  an  end.  A  German 
officer  came  to  notify  the  Belgian  nobleman  that  he  had 
committed  a  very  grave  offense  in  writing  as  he  had  to 

the  Count  M ;  the  Etat  Major,  he  said,  had  tried 

the  Count  to  determine  whether  he  had  conducted  him- 
self as  an  officer  should,  and  had  decided  that  he  had; 
therefore,  in  criticizing  him  the  Belgian  nobleman  had 
reflected  on  the  infallibility,  sacredness,  or  I  know  not 
what  divine  attribute,  of  the  General  Staff — and  there- 
fore must  go  to  Germany  as  a  prisoner.  In  the  end  he 
did  not  go,  because,  I  think,  though  I  do  not  know — 
such  things  are  profound  and  complex  in  their  mystery 
— ^because  when  it  came  to  the  test  the  Germans,  tre- 
mendous snobs  in  such  things,  were  too  much  im- 
pressed by  the  exalted  rank  of  the  Belgian  nobleman  to 
proceed  against  him. 

Whatever  one  might  have  thought  of  the  incident,  or 
of  the  code  that  makes  mountains  out  of  such  mole  hills, 
there  were  others  of  a  somewhat  similar  nature  happen- 
ing all  the  time.  For  instance,  Madame  Lemonnier,  the 
wife  of  the  Burgomaster,  walking  in  the  Bois  one  Sun- 
day afternoon,  went  into  the  Laiterie  with  a  number  of 
friends.  They  took  a  small  table  and  had  ordered  their 
tea,  when  a  young  man  and  a  young  woman  sitting  not 
far  away  became  excited,  and  the  young  woman  seemed 
to  urge  her  companion  to  sOme  action,  so  that  at  last 
he  got  up  and  went  to  the  restaurateur  and  complained 
that  Madame  Lemonnier  was  mocking  his  companion, 
and  calling  the  Germans  "hocTies."  The  restaurateur 
did  nothing,  but  when  Madame  Lemonnier  went  to  her 
home  in  the  Avenue  Louise  that  evening  she  saw  the 
same  young  man  on  the  sidewalk  before  her  residence. 

591 


BELGIUM 

The  next  day  she  was  summoned  to  the  Kommandantur 
and  haled  before  one  of  the  German  judges,  and  ulti- 
mately fined  fifty  francs.  And  not  only  this,  the  con- 
demnation of  "the  wife  of  the  Burgomaster"  was  pub- 
lished on  all  the  walls  of  Brussels  by  means  of  a  large 
affiche.  Of  course  Madame  Lemonnier  had  said  no  such 
thing  as  the  agent  provocateur  attributed  to  her,  but 
with  the  system  of  espionage,  denunciations  and  the 
general  reign  of  terror,  it  was  what  any  one  who  went 
into  a  public  place  was  exposed  to. 

The  tram,  too,  was  a  place  of  danger;  the  wise  kept 
very  still  there,  were  careful  not  even  to  jostle  a  Ger- 
man. A  German  Colonel  entered  a  tram  one  day,  and 
immediately  all  the  Belgians  arose,  some  going  into  the 
second  class  compartment,  others  to  the  platform,  while 
others  got  off ;  the  German  who  told  the  story  said  that 
the  Oherst  was  very  much  hurt  and  surprised. 

A  gentleman  mounting  a  tram  encountered  a  German 
officer  in  the  doorway;  the  officer  bowed,  gave  the  Bel- 
gian the  pas,  and  said : 

''Apres  vous.  Monsieur" 

But  the  Belgian  bowed  low,  and  said : 

"Mais  non,  apres  vous.  Monsieur;  je  suis  chez  moi." 

The  little  daughter  of  a  man  I  knew,  a  child  of  ten, 
walking  on  the  boulevard  with  her  governess,  used  the 
word  boche,  and  instantly  a  man  beside  her,  a  German 
spy  in  civil  garb,  sprang  forward  and  then  and  there 
boxed  her  ears. 

And  I  knew  a  tradesman  in  a  small  way  who  was 
standing  one  afternoon  near  the  Colonne  du  Congres 
gazing  idly  up  at  the  western  sky,  where  the  captive  bal- 
loon always  soared  over  Berchem-Sainte-Agathe,  miles 
away.    One  of  the  swarm  of  German  spies  saw  him  look- 

592 


ESCAPING  AT  THE  FRONTIER 

ing  at  the  German  balloon  and  arrested  him.  He  was 
kept  a  day  and  a  night  at  the  Kommandantur,  and 
his  house  raided. 

Perquisitions  were  as  common  as  denunciations;  no 
one's  home  was  safe ;  at  any  moment  a  squad  of  soldiers 
might  enter  and  ransack  the  house,  turn  out  all  the  draw- 
ers, rummage  in  all  the  closets,  peer,  and  pry,  and  peep 
everywhere.  Nothing  was  safe  or  sacred ;  a  man's  house 
is  not  his  castle  under  German  rule.  We  had  a  neigh- 
bour who  was  denounced  for  having,  or  for  being  sus- 
pected of  having,  letters  of  a  compromising  nature.  The 
only  thing  she  had  was  some  topical  verses  about  the 
German  Kaiser,  and  these  were  in  the  salon.  While  the 
secret  agents  were  hunting  through  the  house  her  hus- 
band came  to  the  door  outside  and  they  went  down  to 
arrest  him.  The  lady  took  advantage  of  this  respite  to 
enter  the  salon,  get  her  doggerel  and  put  it  in  a  room 
that  already  had  been  searched — and  so  escaped. 

A  common  trick  was  to  appear  at  the  door  and  ask 
for  means  to  join  the  Belgian  army;  they  came  to  the 
Legation  often  with  this  ruse.  I  knew  a  woman  who  one 
morning  had  a  call  from  a  man  in  miserable  clothes ;  he 
asked  charity  and  for  means  to  get  away  and  join  the 
army.  She  refused  him  assistance  and  he  went  away. 
But  he  came  back  the  next  day  and-^aid: 

"Pour  Vamour  de  Dieu,  donnez-moi  assez  pour  oiler 
a  Anvers/' 

Finally  touched  by  pity  she  gave  him  two  francs. 
The  next  day  he  returned  in  a  German  uniform  and 
arrested  her  for  assisting  soldiers  to  escape,  and  the  poor 
woman  could  only  say  to  him: 

"Monsieur,  c'est  un  joli  metier,  le  voire!" 

Madame  Carton  de  Wiart,  the  wife  of  the  Belgian 

593 


BELGIUM 

Minister  of  Justice,  had  not  gone  to  Antwerp  with  her 
husband  and  the  other  members  of  the  Government,  but 
had  remained  behind  with  her  six  children  and  the  serv- 
ants, living  on  in  the  ministerial  residence,  when  all  the 
other  ministries  were  occupied  by  Germans.  This  charm- 
ing woman,  with  the  white  hair  and  the  blue  eyes  and 
the  gracious  smile,  was  to  give  an  example  of  the  fine 
courage  of  which  women  are  capable.  She  used  to  come 
occasionally  to  see  us ;  she  had  visited  America,  she  was 
fond  of  it  and  had  much  of  its  spirit ;  she  found,  to  use  a 
phrase  of  Ibsen's,  that  "there  a  freer  air  blows  over  the 
people,"  and  she  had  been  so  impressed  with  our  system 
of  juvenile  courts  that,  with  the  infinite  toil  and  patience 
required  to  inculcate  any  new  idea  anywhere,  she  had 
induced  their  adoption  in  Belgium.  Of  indomitable 
energy,  and  of  strong  human  sympathies,  with  deep  in- 
terest in  social  amelioration  of  all  sorts,  Madame  Car- 
ton de  Wiart  had  worked  incessantly  among  the  poor, 
and  especially  among  the  children  of  the  poor,  and  after 
the  German  occupation  she  found,  not  only  a  human, 
but  a  patriotic  solace  in  these  good  deeds.  She  had 
little  time  then  for  social  visits,  and  formal  calls  were 
no  longer  in  fashion  in  Brussels,  but  she  came  now  and 
then  to  the  Legation,  generally  in  the  evening  after  her 
day's  work  was  done.  She  used  to  wear  a  long  black 
cape,  which  enveloped  her  like  the  cloak  of  a  conspira- 
tor. We  used,  indeed,  to  rally  her  about  it,  and  ssure 
her  that  a  garment  so  mysterious  and  conspiratorial  in 
appearance  would  surely  bring  her  to  trouble. 

In  the  first  days  of  the  war,  before  the  German  occu- 
pation, and  at  some  risk  of  unpopularity,  she  had  or- 
ganized a  charity  for  the  women  and  children  of  the 
Germans  in  Brussels.    She  had  gone  to  distribute  food 

594 


ESCAPING  AT  THE  FRONTIER 

and  warm  drinks  to  the  refugees  there  in  the  Cirque 
those  nights  when  we  were  shipping  off  the  German 
refugees  to  Holland.  She  had  organized  soup  kitchens 
for  the  poor,  VOeuvre  des  Soupes  populaires.  Under 
the  occupation  she  continued  to  go  about  in  her  charita- 
ble work,  traveling,  sometimes  on  foot,  all  over  Bel- 
gium, visiting  the  poor  in  the  stricken  districts,  bear- 
ing clothing  and  comforts  to  them,  and  what  no  doubt 
was  more,  out  of  her  inexhaustible  sympathy,  hearten- 
ing them  and  keeping  up  their  spirit  of  passive  resist- 
ance, a  resistance  no  less  to  despair  than  to  the  invaders 
and  despoilers  of  the  land.  She  set  them  an  example  by 
her  courageous  and  cheerful  attitude. 

The  Germans  naturally  did  not  relish  her  presence  in 
the  only  one  of  the  imposing  block  of  Ministries  there 
in  the  Rue  de  la  Loi  that  they  had  not  taken  over.  Every 
one  who  entered  or  left  the  Ministry  was  harassed  by 
having  to  show  a  passierschein;  spies  followed  her  wher- 
ever she  went;  three  of  her  children  were  arrested  and 
taken  to  the  Kommandantur  because  they  wore  little 
medals  bearing  the  portraits  of  the  King  and  Queen.  The 
Germans  tried  in  every  way  to  induce  her  to  quit  the 
Ministry,  but  she  was  oblivious  to  suggestions,  invita- 
tions, and  even  to  more  pointed  observations,  and  con- 
tinued to  come  and  go  as  though  there  were  no  Germans 
in  the  world — though  there  were  always  a  guard  of 
them,  thirty  or  more,  at  her  door,  and  now  and  then 
companies  of  them  quartered  in  her  home,  sleeping  even 
on  the  floor  of  the  dining-room.  They  sent  old  Gra- 
bowsky,  con^eiller  aulique  of  the  German  Legation,  to 
see  her,  but  Madame  Carton  de  Wiart,  who  knew  the 
protocol,  would  not  receive  him,  and  told  them  to  send 
some  one  of  her  own  rank  if  they  wished  to  communi- 

595 


BELGIUM 

cate  with  her.  Then  they  sent  the  Count  d'Ortenburg, 
of  the  Governor- General's  staff,  who  was  exceedingly 
polite,  but  she  told  him  that  she  would  leave  her  home 
only  as  the  result  of  the  employment  of  force. 

It  was  no  surprise,  then,  to  Brussels,  when  one  morn- 
ing early  in  May  we  heard  that  the  Ministry  of  Justice 
was  surrounded  by  a  cordon  of  soldiers,  and  that  Ma- 
dame Carton  de  Wiart  was  detained  at  the  Komman- 
dantur.  On  the  fourth  of  May  a  perquisition  was  made 
at  the  Ministry  of  Justice,  all  her  papers  seized  and 
translated  and  studied.  The  same  day  she  was  subjected 
in  the  Senate  chamber  to  an  interrogation  lasting  four 
hours;  the  next  day  she  was  subjected  to  another  in- 
terrogation lasting  four  hours.  She  was  allowed  to  re- 
turn then  to  her  home,  but  forbidden  to  leave  Brussels, 
and  when  she  went  for  a  promenade  in  the  Bois  she  was 
followed  by  the  police.  A  few  days  later  she  was  again 
interrogated,  this  time  in  her  own  salon,  and  on  the 
eighteenth  of  May  she  was  formally  arrested  and  con- 
fined in  the  Kommandantur,  and  during  nine  mortal 
hours  again  subjected  to  an  interrogation.  The  next 
day  there  was  another  interrogation  in  the  Senate 
chamber,  lasting  five  hours.  The  day  following  she  was 
taken  to  the  Ministry  of  Foreign  Affairs  to  hear  the 
reading  of  the  formal  charges;  the  next  day  there  was 
another  interrogatory  lasting  three  hours,  and  at  six 
o'clock  in  the  evening  of  the  eighteenth  she  was  con- 
demned to  deportation.  The  day  following  she  was 
taken  to  Berlin  and  confined  in  a  common  prison  for 
female  criminals. 

We  saw  Madame  Carton  de  Wiart  only  once  after  the 
proceedings  began,  and  that  was  one  afternoon  at  the 
Palais  de  Glace,  in  the  Rue  du  Marche  aux  Herbes  Po- 

596 


ESCAPING  AT  THE  FRONTIER 

tageres,  where  there  was  an  exposition,  and  the  Burgo- 
master of  Brussels  presented  to  Villalobar,  to  van  Vol- 
lenhoven  and  to  me,  medals  of  St.  Michel,  the  patron 
saint  of  the  city.  A  little  girl  recited  a  poem  written 
by  George  Garnir  for  the  occasion,  in  presenting  to  my 
wife,  on  the  part  of  the  school  children  of  Brussels,  a 
souvenir  that  recalled  the  Christmas  gifts  sent  by  the 
American  school-children  to  the  Belgians.  Madame 
Carton  de  Wiart  was  very  calm  and  smiling,  but  her 
eyes  showed  the  excitement  of  her  dangerous  adventure, 
and  she  did  not  converse  long  with  any  one,  fearing,  in 
her  knowledge  of  the  presence  of  spies,  that  she  might 
compromise  her  friends'. 

We  did  not,  indeed,  know  of  her  departure  until  a  few 
days  after  she  had  been  deported,  and  I  did  not  know 
the  details  or  the  reason  of  it  until  long  afterward.  She 
had  never,  to  us,  referred  in  any  way  to  her  patriotic 
activities.  It  was  a  bit  of  the  charming  humour  char- 
acteristic of  Madame  Carton  de  Wiart  that  she  had 
somehow  arranged  to  have  "p.p.c."  cards  left  on  us  at 
the  Legation. 

Among  the  published  arretes  of  the  German  authori- 
ties one  day  following  was  one  announcing  the  con- 
demnation and  deportation;  it  took  pains  to  refer  to 
Madame  Carton  de  Wiart  as  the  wife  of  the  former  Bel- 
gian Minister  of  Justice.  She  was  condemned  to  three 
months  and  two  weeks  imprisonment.  The  Pope  him- 
self made  a  personal  request  of  the  German  Emperor 
to  liberate  Madame  Carton  de  Wiart,  and  it  was  inti- 
mated to  her  that  she  might  be  set  free  if  she  would  ask 
for  pardon. 

"Ask  pardon  for  what?"  she  demanded.  She  would 
not,  and  she  remained  in  a  common  prison  at  Berlin  until 

597 


BELGIUM 

the  expiration  of  her  sentence.  She  was  allowed  to  take 
little  with  her,  though  she  did  have  a  small  box  contain- 
ing a  bit  of  the  soil  of  Belgium.  At  the  end  of  the  time 
she  was  released  and  sent  to  the  neutral  soil  of  Switzer- 
land, whence  she  rejoined  her  husband  at  Havre,  where 
he  was  still  Belgian  Minister  of  Justice. 

During  the  interrogation  and  badgering  to  which  she 
was  constantly  subjected,  Madame  Carton  de  Wiart 
acknowledged  that  she  had  been  in  correspondence  with 
her  husband  at  Havre,  that  she  had  transmitted  news 
of  the  state  of  health  of  soldiers  in  the  Belgian  army  to 
their  families  in  Belgium,  and  that  she  had  caused  to  be 
circulated  the  famous  Pastoral  of  Cardinal  Mercier, 
"Patriotisme  et  Endurance."  She  acknowledged,  too, 
that  she  found  a  letter  in  her  post-box  addressed  to  the 
Kommandantur,  and  that  she  had  destroyed  it.  But  all 
the  letters  she  had  transmitted,  she  declared,  were  of  a 
personal  nature,  intended  to  alleviate  the  anxiety  of 
those  who  had  no  news  of  their  sons  and  brothers  at  the 
front,  and  that  they  contained  nothing  of  a  military 
nature. 

Among  her  papers  seized  at  the  Ministry  there  was 
found  a  journal,  which  was  subjected  to  a  most  thorough 
examination.  Madame  Carton  de  Wiart  was  closely 
questioned  as  to  its  contents.  On  a  certain  date  the  fol- 
lowing note  was  found: 

Passe  une  soiree  tres  interessante  chez  B.  W.  Le  Ministre  a 
raconte  une  belle  histoire  dans  laquelle  il  a  fait  allusion  au  mot  du 
Ministre  Talleyrand,  "on  peut  militariser  un  civil,  mais  on  ne  pent 
pas  civiliser  un  militaire."  ^ 

^  "Passed  a  very  interesting  evening  at  B.  W.'s.  The  Minister 
recounted  a  delightful  anecdote  in  which  he  alluded  to  a  saying  of 
the  Minister  Talleyrand,  'one  can  militarize  a  civilian  but  one  can 
not  civilise  a  military.'  " 

598 


ESCAPING  AT  THE  FRONTIER 

The  reference  was  to  an  evening  at  the  American  Le- 
gation when  I  had  told  I  know  not  what  story  in  which 
the  saying  of  the  witty  Frenchman  was  introduced. 
During  the  investigation  the  official,  a  large  German  in 
uniform  and  wearing  glasses,  holding  in  his  hands  Ma- 
dame Carton  de  Wiart's  journal,  said,  in  an  impressive 
manner : 

"Madame,  I  see  here  that  you  allude  to  a  remark 
made  by  a  certain  minister,  a  Monsieur  Talleyrand. 
You  apply  this  saying  to  the  Germans,  do  you  not, 
Madame?" 

"Not  at  all,"  answered  Madame  Carton  de  Wiart,  "it 
is  not  I  who  said  it,  it  was  Monsieur  Talleyrand." 

"But  you  say  here,  Madame,  that  'one  can  militarize 
a  civilian.'  Now  then,  the  Belgians  fired  on  the  Ger- 
mans when  they  entered  Belgium.  It  can,  therefore,  be 
said  that  one  can  militarize  civilians,  can  it  not?" 

Madame  Carton  de  Wiart  could  with  difficulty  keep 
from  smiling.     She  replied,  however: 

"Not  at  all ;  that  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  Belgians ; 
I  have  told  you  that  it  was  the  Minister  Talleyrand  who 
said  that." 

"But  who  is  this  Minister  Talleyrand?" 

"He  was  a  Minister  of  France." 

"What  portfolio  does  he  hold?" 

"He  was  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs." 

"But,  Madame,"  said  the  German,  "every  one  knows 
that  it  is  Monsieur  Delcasse  who  is  French  Minister  for 
Foreign  Affairs." 

"I  did  not  say,"  said  Madame  Carton  de  Wiart,  "that 
Monsieur  Talleyrand  is  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs 
at  the  present  time.  It  was  some  time  ago  that  he  oc- 
cupied that  post." 

599 


BELGIUM 

"And  when  was  he  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs?" 
"Oh!    It  was  about  a  hundred  years  ago,  Monsieur; 

under  the  Directory,  the  Consulate,  the  Empire,  and  the 

Restoration."^ 

'  In  the  arretes  published  by  the  Germans  in  La  Belgique,  on 
the  twenty-seventh  of  May,  is  the  following: 

CoNDAMNATION 

Mme.  Carton  de  Wiart,  femme  de  I'ancien  Ministre  de  la  Jus- 
tice, a  ete  condamnee  le  21  mai  1915,  par  le  tribunal  militaire  du 
gouvernement  a  trois  mois  et  deux  semaines  de  prison.  Mme.  Car- 
ton de  Wiart  a,  elle-meme,  avoue  avoir  continuellement,  dans  un 
grand  nombre  de  cas,  et  en  evitant  la  poste  allemande,  fait  trans- 
mettre  des  lettres  e  elle  et  a  d'autrui  en  Belgique,  et  au  dela  de 
la  frontiere  hollandaise.  Elle  a,  aussi,  soustrait  ces  lettres  au  con- 
trole  et  rendu  possible  leur  utilisation  pour  I'espionnage  et  la  trans- 
mission de  nouvelles  def  endues.  Elle  a,  en  outre,  d'apres  son  propre 
aveu,  distribue  des  ecrits  defendus  tout  en  connaissant  tres  bien 
leur  caractere  ofFensant.  Elle  a,  enfin,  toujours  apres  son  propre 
aveu,  soustrait  et  detruit  une  lettre  adressee  a  la  Kommandantur 
et  mise  par  erreur  dans  sa  boite  a  lettres.  Par  de  tels  procedes,  il 
est  possible  de  mettre  en  danger  la  securite  des  troupes  allemandes. 
Par  consequence,  Mme.  Carton  de  Wiart  a  du  etre  condamnee  et 
transportee  en  Allemagne. 

Translation 
Condemnation 

Madame  Carton  de  Wiart,  wife  of  the  former  Minister  of  Jus- 
tice, was  condemned  on  the  21  May,  1915,  by  the  military  tribunal 
of  the  government  to  three  months'  and  two  weeks'  imprisonment. 
Madame  Carton  de  Wiart  has,  herself,  in  many  cases,  and  there- 
by avoiding  the  German  post,  admitted  having  continually  caused 
letters  to  be  transmitted,  both  her  own  and  those  of  others,  in 
Belgium  and  across  the  Holland  frontier.  She  has  thus  with- 
drawn these  letters  from  control  and  rendered  possible  their  utili- 
zation for  espionage  and  for  the  transmission  of  forbidden  news. 

600 


ESCAPING  AT  THE  FRONTIER 

The  women  of  Belgium,  indeed,  were  quite  as  patriotic 
as  the  men.  The  young  Countess  d'Ursel,  a  charming 
and  beautiful  girl,  was  arrested,  tried,  and  condemned, 
on  suspicion  of  attempting  to  aid  young  men  to  cross  the 
frontier — such,  precisely  was  the  charge.  She  was  tried 
before  a  court  martial  and,  as  she  was  permitted  no  coun- 
sel, she  displayed  in  her  own  defense  a  clear  and  clever 
mind.  She  protested  that  it  was  unjust  to  convict  her 
on  a  charge  of  suspicion,  especially  of  a  fact  that  had 
not  yet  been  established — ^namely,  the  fact  of  the  escape 
of  the  young  men  at  the  frontier.  Once  she  began  to 
speak  English,  and  was  told: 
"C'est  une  langue  def  endue." 
"Mais"  said  she,  "si  Von  est  americain!" 
She  was  condemned  to  one  month  in  prison  in  Ger- 
many, or  to  pay  a  fine  of  one  thousand  francs.  She 
wished  to  go  to  prison,  in  Belgium  preferably,  because 
"autrement  les  pauvres  gens  considereraient  que  je  suis 
libre  parce  que  j'ai  de  V argent" 

But  her  father  paid  the  fine.  For  the  family  of  one 
thus  accused  the  whole  experience  was  an  agony  of  sus- 
pense and  vague  fears.  And  then  such  an  affair  was 
never  ended.  Not  long  afterward  the  brother-in-law  of 
the  young  Countess  was  visited  in  his  chateau,  which 
was  searched,  and  his  concierge  and  his  guard  arrested. 

She  has,  furthermore,  according  to  her  own  admission,  distributed 
forbidden  pamphlets,  knowing  very  well  their  offensive  character. 
She  has,  finally,  always  according  to  her  own  admission,  taken  out 
and  destroyed  a  letter  addressed  to  the  Kommandantur  and  by 
mistake  put  into  her  letter-box.  By  such  proceedings  it  is  pos- 
sible to  endanger  the  security  of  the  German  troops.  Conse- 
quently, Madame  Carton  de  Wiart  had  to  be  condemned  and  trans- 
ported to  Germany. 

601 


BELGIUM 

The  pretext  was  that  there  were  arms  in  the  chateau. 
Then  the  house  of  an  aunt  was  perquisitioned :  some  one 
had  denounced  her  for  having  made  signals  to  aero- 
planes. The  assertion,  of  course,  was  ridiculous,  but 
denunciations  were  frequent  and  inseparable  from  the 
system.  The  Kommandantur  believed  everything  it 
heard,  and  the  amounts  of  money  thus  collected  in 
"fines"  were  enormous. 

There  were,  of  course,  vast  numbers  of  Belgians  who 
were  secretly  concerned  in  the  work  of  aiding  young 
men  to  cross  the  frontier.  For  a  long  time  after  the 
occupation  began  it  was  not  difficult  to  escape  over  the 
border  into  Holland;  a  few  francs  to  a  sentinel — and 
his  back  was  turned.  Afterwards  the  methods  were 
systematized ;  there  were  known  centers  and  agents  who 
arranged  such  escapes. 

Belgians  knowing  well  this  part  of  the  country,  col- 
lected in  groups  the  young  men  desiring  to  escape,  con- 
ducted them  by  night  across  the  country  to  the  sentinel 
in  league  with  the  guide. 

The  expense  of  crossing  the  frontier,  like  all  other  ex- 
penses indeed,  increased  as  the  war  continued.  I  was 
told  that  a  group  of  eight  young  men  who  crossed  to- 
gether, paid  each  one  a  thousand  marks  to  the  sentinel. 
And  the  sentinel  asked  the  guide  to  bring  as  many  young 
men  as  he  could  that  same  week  because  the  week  fol- 
lowing he  was  going  to  the  front. 

For  a  while  it  was  not  a  very  deep  secret  that  a  cer- 
tain German  officer  at  Antwerp  would  arrange  these 
escapes,  but  the  price  of  his  services,  growing  more  and 
more  extortionate,  became  finally  too  great  to  be  avail- 
able. The  higher  authorities  would  ultimately  discover 
and  break  up  these  combinations,  and  the  vigilance  at 

602 


ESCAPING  AT  THE  FRONTIER 

the  Dutch  frontier  would  be  redoubled.  All  along  the 
border  through  the  dreary  Campine  country,  with  its 
woods  of  low  scrub  oak  and  its  waste  moors  of  purple 
heather,  there  were  elaborate  contrivances  of  barbed- 
wire,  and  a  high  fence  of  gleaming  wire  charged  with 
electricity  that  instantly  killed  any  one  who  touched  it. 
Men  used  to  escape  through  these  wires,  however,  by 
thrusting  between  them  a  barrel  from  which  the  heads 
had  been  removed,  and  then  crawling  through  it.  Some- 
times the  wires  were  insulated  by  wrapping  rubber 
blankets  about  them ;  sometimes  they  were  cut.  But  the 
wires  were  strengthened  and  there  were  double  rows  of 
them;  the  barrier  was  made  higher  and  higher.  Along 
the  river  Scheldt  there  were  all  sorts  of  expedients  con- 
trived by  means  of  boats.  Besides,  many  plunged  in 
and  swam  the  stream — and  many  were  shot  by  sentinels 
as  they  were  in  the  water. 

It  was  a  long  and  dangerous  journey  to  the  frontier; 
oftentimes  it  occupied  days,  with  long  waits  and  pauses 
in  certain  houses,  barns,  and  estaminets,  what  our  grand- 
fathers in  America  in  the  days  before  the  Civil  War 
used  to  call  an  underground  railway. 

There  were  those  who  knew  the  pass  words,  and  in 
the  woods  there  were  poachers  who  acted  as  guides. 
The  routes,  the  pass  words,  the  stations,  and  all  the 
mysterious  paraphernalia  were  changed  frequently,  for 
the  German  spies  were  always  discovering  the  means. 

It  is  said,  however,  that  in  that  first  winter  more  than 
34,000  young  men  found  their  way  out  of  Belgium  and 
into  Holland,  and  eventually  joined  the  army  on  the 
Yser;  34,000  adventures,  full  of  what  excitement  and 
danger ! 

Mothers  in  Belgium  trembled  to  see  their  boys  grow 

603 


BELGIUM 

up,  for  that  meant  not  only  the  danger  of  war  that  was 
common  to  all,  but  the  far  greater  danger  of  crossing 
the  frontier.  There  is  not  in  history  any  story  more 
heroic  than  that  of  those  lads,  some  of  them  only  seven- 
teen, who  braved  the  many  dangers  that  lay  between 
their  comfortable  homes  and  the  taut,  shining  spread  of 
electrified  wires  at  the  Dutch  frontier.  Thousands  of 
boys  were  shot  down  with  liberty  in  sight,  there  among 
the  bracken  and  the  heather  of  that  drear  land  of  the 
Campine.  Among  those  who  thus  escaped  were  those 
English  soldiers  cut  oif  from  the  main  body  of  their 
troops  after  the  battle  of  Mons,  hiding  in  the  woods  and 
fields  and  farms  for  months  until  they  fou^d  their  Bel- 
gian friends.  There  were  French  soldiers  in  this  plight 
as  well,  and  even  Belgians.  There  was  a  captain  of 
artillery,  a  Belgian,  who  had  been  wounded  and  taken 
prisoner  at  Liege;  he  escaped  from  the  hospital,  got  to 
Brussels,  hid  for  months  in  an  attic,  and  then,  after 
wonderful  adventures  in  Oriental  Flanders,  was  guided 
by  a  poacher  at  night  across  the  frontier. 

The  adventurous  voyage  of  the  tug  Atlas  V,  as  it  was 
told  to  me — after  I  had  come  out  of  Belgium — ^by  one 
who  participated  in  it,  shows  the  spirit  of  the  young 
men  and  the  dangers  they  braved  to  get  away.  He  was 
at  Liege  then,  and  to-day  is  in  the  Belgian  army. 

"They  came  to  tell  me,"  he  said,  "at  my  home  one 
evening  about  eleven  o'clock,  that  the  moment  had  come 
to  go.  I  wrapped  pieces  of  felt  about  my  boots  so  as 
to  make  no  noise  in  the  streets,  for  we  were  forbidden 
by  the  Germans  to  be  out  after  half-past  ten.  The 
chief  of  my  group  gave  me  a  playing  card  with  a  special 
sign,  and  said  to  me,  *  Crawl  on  your  hands  and  knees 
past  the  two  German  posts  which  guard  the  foundry 

604 


ESCAPING  AT  THE  FRONTIER 

along  the  guard  rail  of  the  Meuse,  cross  the  bridge  at 
the  communal  rifle  range,  and  you  will  see  some  trees 
on  the  left.  Then  a  man  will  come  out  toward  you ;  say 
to  him  "Charleroi."  '  However,  when  I  came  to  the  trees 
it  was  not  one  man  but  fifty  that  I  found.  I  thought 
that  I  had  been  betrayed;  nevertheless  I  spoke  to  one 
of  them  and  he  replied  'Charleroi,'  and  told  me  that  the 
man  in  question  was  not  there.  I  had  been  told  that 
the  tug  was  called  Atlas  V  and  that  it  had  a  four-leaf 
clover  on  the  funnel.  I  went  toward  the  Meuse  and 
found  the  tug,  and  those  who  were  to  be  my  companions 
— Belgians,  anxious  to  get  away.  The  tug,  in  order  not 
to  attract  attention,  had  the  prow  turned  in  the  direc- 
tion opposite  to  that  in  which  we  were  to  go.  About 
midnight  it  started  and  turned  about,  which  was  very 
dangerous,  because  three  hundred  metres  away  there 
was  a  German  sentry.  As  soon  as  the  tug  had  turned 
they  shut  oiF  the  steam  and  we  were  caught  in  a  violent 
current,  the  Meuse  having  risen  three  metres.  We  passed 
without  any  trouble  under  the  bridge  of  Wandre,  but 
at  Argenteau  we  noticed  a  mill -guarded  by  the  Ger- 
mans, and  they  must  have  seen  us,  for  as  soon  as  we 
came  in  sight  of  the  bridge  of  Vise  we  were  caught  in  a 
sharp  fusillade.  At  the  same  time  two  search  lights 
were  turned  on  us,  and  guns  and  mitrailleuses  started  up 
in  a  lively  fashion.  Three  gun  shots  even  were  fired 
at  us,  but  they  did  not  hit.  It  was  a  nasty  moment  {un 
sale  moment)  because  the  balls  were  striking  the  hull 
as  high  as  our  ears.  A  German  boat,  furnished  with  two 
mitrailleuses  and  with  a  crew  of  six  hoches,  advanced 
toward  us  to  shoot  point-blank,  but  our  pilot  did  not 
lose  his  head  and  with  a  turn  of  the  wheel  sank  the  bark 
with  its  crew.    I  saw  it  all  very  plainly  because  I  was 

605 


BELGIUM 

looking  through  a  forward  porthole.  The  Germans  had 
built  a  bridge  about  thirty  metres  over  the  Meuse  in 
order  to  give  passage  to  a  four-track  railroad  joining 
Antwerp  and  Aix-la-Chapelle,  and  beside  this  viaduct 
there  was  a  low  foot  bridge  of  wood,  with  a  double  track. 
We  were  going  at  full  speed  and  hit  this  foot  bridge. 
The  tug  bounded  back  and  again  butted  the  bridge, 
which  went  under.  The  funnel  of  our  tug  looked  like 
an  accordion.  Six  Germans  guarding  the  bridge  were 
drowned.  This  detail  was  afterwards  confirmed  by  the 
German  Consul  at  Maestricht.  But  our  troubles  were 
not  over.  After  that  we  had  to  cut  through  seven 
chains  strung  across  the  Meuse,  and  all  that  under  a  hot 
fire.  When  the  seven  chains  were  cut  there  still  re- 
mained the  electric  cable,  the  most  terrible  obstacle,  but 
the  last.  The  cable  resisted  and  the  tug  was  lifted  up 
at  the  prow  and  slid  over  toward  the  river  bank.  We 
thought  we  were  lost,  when  one  of  the  cable  posts  on 
the  river  bank  broke,  and  the  tug  dove  forward  and  I 
had  a  douche  of  water  from  the  porthole  above.  The 
tug  struck  the  river  bottom  and  we  thought  we  were 
gone ;  we  were  running  toward  the  companion-way  when 
the  Captain  shouted  'Full  speed  ahead,'  and  we  under- 
stood then  that  it  was  all  right.  Two  minutes  later  the 
firing  had  ceased  and  we  were  free.  What  joy!  We 
sang  the  national  hymns  with  all  our  hearts.  It  was 
half-past  one  o'clock.  There  were  one  hundred  and 
three  Belgians  aboard,  among  them  two  women  and  two 
children.  And  think  of  my  astonishment  when  I  dis- 
covered that  the  crew  of  the  boat  consisted  of  the  Cap- 
tain, who  was  a  forage  merchant,  and  a  pilot,  who  knew 
how  to  steer  but  who  knew  the  Meuse  only  between  Di- 
nant  and  Namur ;  the  engineer  was  an  engineer  by  trade, 

606 


ESCAPING  AT  THE  FRONTIER 

and  the  one  who  indicated  the  turnings,  the  islands  and 
the  depths  of  the  water,  was  an  old  man  who  had  fished 
all  his  life  along  the  Meuse." 

I  know  a  priest  who  escaped  across  the  frontier  with 
the  aid  of  a  poacher,  returned  to  the  land  and  escaped 
again ;  he  hid  in  the  covert  while  the  Uhlans  were  beating 
it  in  every  direction  in  their  effort  to  find  him ;  at  night 
they  brought  motor  cars  with  electric  search  lights,  and 
he  lay  there  in  the  broom  and  heather  while  the  long  rays 
swept  the  ground  about  him. 

Again,  I  was  told  of  a  group  of  lads  from  Brussels; 
they  went  to  Louvain ;  there,  in  the  railway  station,  was 
a  man  who  carried  a  handkerchief  in  his  left  hand  with 
which  he  wiped  his  brow;  this  was  the  signal.  They  fol- 
lowed this  man,  who  entered  a  train,  finally  got  off  far 
up  in  Flanders,  thence  led  his  young  men  to  a  little 
inn,  where  they  stayed  over  night,  and  then,  in  carts 
with  pigs,  crossed  the  frontier,  bribing  the  sentries — at 
that  time  not  a  difficult  thing  to  do. 

And  the  priest  at  the  prison  of  St.  Gilles,  condemned 
for  two  years  for  aiding  them  to  escape — ^he  had  got 
forty  out  of  the  country — said: 

"My  loss  of  liberty  helps  others  to  be  free,  and  my 
country  to  be  free." 

To  aid  these  young  men  was  held  by  the  Germans  to 
be  treason,  on  what  strange,  exaggerated  notion  of  law 
it  would  be  difficult  to  imagine,  but  treason  it  was — 
"military  treason,"  they  called  it,  trahison  de  guerre. 
It  was  not  always  punished  by  death,  but  it  was  so  pun- 
ished sometimes,  and  more  and  more  as  time  went  on, 
until  the  yard  at  St.  Gilles  prison  was  full  of  graves, 
and  at  the  Tir  National  there  was  another  cemetery 
that  has  now  more  than  two  score  graves.     Strange 

607 


BELGIUM 

dramatic  destiny  of  the  National  Rifle  Range  of  Bel- 
gium, that  it  should  become  the  scene  of  so  many  heroic 
martyrdoms — ^those  scores  of  patriots  blindfolded  and 
stood  before  the  grey  firing  squad  in  the  dawn  I 

I  think  now  of  the  shudder  that  went  through  Brus- 
sels when  poor  Lenoi  was  shot ;  so  many  knew  him ;  the 
fact  somehow  made  it  more  real  and  more  terrible. 
Lenoi  was  a  division  chief  of  the  Government  railway, 
who  had  been  talking  more  than  was  good  for  him  in  the 
estaminets  in  Brussels,  telling  of  his  services,  and  how  he 
had  sent  information  to  the  Government  at  Havre.  One 
morning  he  was  arrested  and  taken  to  Ghent  and  tried 
that  same  day.  At  eleven  o'clock  he  was  condemned, 
and  at  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  without  having  been 
allowed  to  see  his  wife  or  a  priest,  he  was  led  out  before 
his  coffin,  a  squad  of  soldiers  before  and  behind,  stood 
up  against  the  wall,  and  shot.  And  then  his  wife  was 
sent  to  Germany.  The  story  sickened  one  as  it  was 
told.  The  poor  chap  was  only  one  of  hundreds,  of  thou- 
sands of  Belgians,  men  and  women,  killed  thus. 

There  were,  of  course,  many  spies  of  the  Allies  in 
the  country,  who  under  the  hard  rules  of  war,  expected 
no  mercy  if  they  were  caught,  and  there  were  others  who 
played  an  even  more  difficult  and  involved  role,  in  prac- 
tising what  is  called  contre-espionnage ;  they  were  Bel- 
gians who  pretended  to  sell  themselves  to  the  Germans 
and  to  obtain  information  for  them,  when,  in  fact,  they 
were  doing  this  in  order  to  obtain  for  the  Allies  informa- 
tion from  the  Germans.  They  not  only  ran  all  the  ordi- 
nary risks  of  the  spies,  but  lost  as  well  the  confidence 
and  respect  of  their  own  fellows  and  countrymen. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  relate  all  the  dramatic  stories 
that  were  told  more  and  more  as  time  went  on  and  the 

608 


ESCAPING  AT  THE  FRONTIER 

terror  grew.  An  American,  whose  release  from  the 
Kommandantur  I  had  just  secured,  told  me  of  a  French 
girl,  with  dark  flashing  eyes,  who  was  to  be  shot  in  the 
morning;  she  sang  "La  Marseillaise"  all  night. 

No  wonder  the  Belgians  hate  the  Germans  with  a 
hatred  that  will  not  die  for  centuries.  No  wonder  that 
Le  Jeune  could  say: 

"They  are  brutes,  you  know! 

"I  hate  them  as  nobody  ever  hated  another,  you  know ! 

"If  I  could  I'd  kill  six  millions  of  them  every  day. 

"When  I  shave  them  my  hand  itches  to  cut  their 
throats." 


LXXV 

THE   LUSITANIA 

On  Saturday,  the  eighth  of  May,  the  loveliest  of 
spring  days,  I  had  gone  to  Ravenstein.  There  was 
something  like  a  detente  in  the  atmosphere ;  there  seemed 
to  be  a  new  hope,  a  possibility  of  new  life — that  vague 
reassurance  of  the  spring  that  one's  projects,  after  all, 
will  come  to  fruition.  The  chateau  had  been  reopened, 
and  the  little  flags  fluttered  again  over  the  greens  that 
rolled  away  toward  the  red  roofs  of  Tervueren;  a  few 
of  us  had  mustered  up  courage  to  brave  the  fates  and 
play  golf  again.  I  was  coming  in,  toward  tea-time, 
from  the  eighteenth  hole  and  I  met  a  friend  who  said: 

"Is  it  true  that  the  Lusitania  has  been  torpedoed  and 
sunk?" 

I  had  heard  nothing  of  the  kind  and  did  not,  could 
not,  believe  it.  I  had  been  reading  in  the  Times,  it  is 
true,  only  the  night  before  of  Count  von  Bernstorff's 
warning  and  of  how  the  newspapers  at  home  were  re- 
senting it,  but  such  a  thing  simply  could  not  be.  It  is 
implicit  in  the  egoism  of  our  nature,  this  inability  to  im- 
agine calamity  befalling  us.  No  one  can  conceive  of  his 
own  city  without  himself  in  it ;  no  one  can  conceive  of  the 
world,  or  of  life  going  on  in  the  world,  without  him.  It  is 
a  part  of  that  will  to  live  which  preserves  life;  it  is  a 
proof,  if  philosophers  and  economists  would  only  study 
it,  of  the  validity  of  individualism,  in  opposition  to  two 
theories  of  the  State,  both  authoritarian  and  both  Ger- 
man, different,  and  yet  essentially  alike  in  conception 

610 


THE  LUSITANIA 

and  application — the  doctrinaire  socialist  and  the  mili- 
tarist. There  is  a  persistent  and  ineradicable  instinct  in 
man  that  refuses  to  admit  the  authority  of  the  general 
staff  of  the  central  committee  of  the  soviet;  he  revolts 
at  the  thought  of  becoming  a  mere  cog  in  the  intricate 
wheels  of  some  gigantic  and  grotesque  clock  that  marks 
the  flight  of  hours  that  can  have  no  meaning,  no  pur- 
pose, no  beauty,  unless  man  is  free.  .  .  . 

The  LiUsitania?  Sunk?  Impossible!  Why,  I  could 
see  her,  feel  her  under  my  feet.  I  could  hear  my  old 
friend  O'Farrell  say,  as  we  walked  the  promenade-deck 
one  bright  morning: 

"I  smell  the  west  coast  of  Ireland!" 

Then  we  sighted  the  Bull,  Cow,  and  Calf,  and  the 
Fastnet,  and  late  in  the  afternoon,  there,  under  the 
green-brown  shores  of  Ireland,  was  Kinsale  light.  .  .  . 

But  de  Siugay  was  coming  out  of  the  chateau  as  I 
went  on  to  the  terrace.  Yes,  it  was  true;  he  had  seen 
it  in  the  German  newspapers  that  afternoon.  She  had 
been  torpedoed  and  sunk  off  the  entrance  to  Queens- 
town.  .  .  . 

The  green-brown  shores,  and  Kinsale — just  as  those 
poor  souls,  happy  in  that  exhilarating  moment  when  the 
voyage  is  almost  over,  had  seen  it  that  afternoon,  one 
moment  all  was  light  and  life  and  joy,  the  next  horror 
and  blackness — and  the  cowardly  thing  scuttling  off 
there  far  in  the  depths  of  the  green  waters,  after  a 
hideous  deed  that  one  would  have  thought  so  short  a 
time  before  no  living  being  could  be  found  low  .and 
dastardly  enough  to  commit.  It  made  one  almost  physi- 
cally ill.  .  .  . 

I  went  home  at  once,  and  there  were  none  but  grim 
faces  at  the  Legation ;  rage,  indignation,  that  could  find 

611 


BELGIUM 

no  expression.  .  .  .  There  it  was,  just  as  de  Siugay  had 
said,  a  great  ugly  headline : 

^'Ozeandampfer  Lusitania  Torpediert" 

With  the  punctiliousness  in  such  matters  that  had  al- 
ways characterized  the  Brtiwellois,  many  came  to  the 
Legation  to  leave  condolences  because  of  the  Americans 
who  had  lost  their  lives.  The  Prince  de  Ligne  was  an- 
nounced late  that  same  afternoon;  I  see  him  now,  his 
distinguished  face,  his  white  hair,  his  black  garb,  his 
perfect  bearing,  bowing  and  sawing: 

"Excellence,  je  ne  veiuv  pas  vous  deranger,  je  viens 
simplement  pour  vous  exprimer  mes  condoteances  a 
propos  de  la  perte  de  vos  concitoyens;  les  Americains 
ont  ete  si  bons  pour  nous  Beiges  que  tout  ce  qui  vous 
touchCj  nous  touche  .  .  ." 

We  lived  thenceforth  for  days  in  uncertainty,  which 
no  other  agony  is  quite  like.  We  had  no  news ;  the  Ger- 
man authorities,  as  always  in  times  of  crisis,  forbade 
the  entrance  of  the  Dutch  newspapers,  the  one  neutral 
source  of  information  that  we  had.  The  only  newspa- 
pers published  in  Brussels  were  under  German  censor- 
ship and  control — journaux  emhoches,  intellectually  im- 
moral sheets  in  which  one  could  place  no  confidence  and 
for  which  one  could  have  nothing  but  contempt.  The 
German  newspapers,  even  with  their  censorship,  were 
not  nearly  so  bad,  for  they  made  no  pretense  of  being 
anything  but  German;  we  had  them  from  Cologne  and 
Dusseldorf  every  day,  and  just  then  they  were  filled 
with  an  almost  maniacal  gloating  over  the  deed  of  the 
submarine,  and  that  was  intolerable. 

I  did  not  go  over  to  the  Rue  Lambermont  the  day 
after  the  catastrophe,  nor  for  several  days,  but  I  heard 
that  it  had  been  said  that  Germany  was  not  responsible 

612 


THE  LUSITANIA 

for  the  loss  of  American  lives  because  every  one  had  been 
warned  not  to  go  aboard  the  Lusitania.  When  I  did 
go  there  again,  some  days  later,  every  one  was  affable; 
the  word  Lusitania  was  not  spoken,  no  reference,  at  that 
time,  was  made  to  the  event.  There  had  been,  however, 
for  a  long  time  much  feeling  among  the  military  against 
America,  due  partly  to  the  old  complaint  about  muni- 
tions, and  partly  to  the  conviction  that  there  was  no 
longer  any  chance  of  winning  American  sentiment  and 
sympathy.  We  had  been  its  victims  now  and  then,  the 
young  men  of  the  Commission,  especially  those  in 
northern  France,  were  often,  I  might  almost  say  con- 
stantly, exposed  to  a  resentment  that  the  officers  there 
were  at  no  pains  to  conceal,  but  more  often,  indeed, 
quite  frank  to  express  to  men  whom  they  were  always 
reminding  were  there  as  their  ''guests." 

The  subject  of  munitions  was  mentioned  to  me  only 
two  or  three  times,  I  believe — once  at  that  time  and 
again  later.  It  was  a  young  German  officer,  a  Count, 
of  a  well-known  family,  who  mentioned  it  the  first 
time.  He  was  in  my  office  and,  noticing  the  photograph 
of  President  Wilson  on  the  cheminee,  said: 

"Est-ce  Monsieur  Wilson?'' 

"Qui"  I  replied,  "regardez-le  bien/' 

He  studied  it  a  long  time  very  attentively. 

"Notez  bien  la  mdchoire  inferieure"  I  said. 

''Oui/'  he  said,  ''mais  il  devrait  defendre  qu'on  vende 
des  munitions  a  nos  ennemis." 

"Mais  ils  ne  sont  pas  nos  en/nemis/*  I  replied.  And 
I  tried  to  explain  it  to  him,  showing  him  that  under  the 
conventions  it  was  not  part  of  the  duty  of  our  Govern- 
ment to  forbid  its  own  citizens  from  selling  munitions  of 

613 


BELGIUM 

war  to  any  one  they  pleased,  that  this  was  recognized 
by  the  Hague  Convention  and  that  when  an  effort  to 
change  it  had  been  made  some  years  ago  it  was  the  in- 
fluence of  Germany  that  defeated  the  project;  that  Ger- 
many could  buy  goods  on  the  same  terms  with  others 
in  America,  that  all  she  had  to  do  was  to  get  her  ships 
across  the  Atlantic.  He  seemed  not  to  understand. 
They  seemed  always  incapable  of  understanding.  As  I 
have  said,  that  which  is  known  to  Englishmen  and  to 
Americans  as  the  sporting  sense,  seemed  to  be  unknown 
to  them;  their  one  sport  is  war,  and  they  do  not  play 
at  that  as  sportsmen.  The  higher  officers  at  Antwerp 
were  generally  offensive  in  their  attitude  toward  Amer- 
ica, and  in  their  comments  at  and  after  the  time  of  the 
crime  of  the  Lusitania  the  military  men  at  Brussels  were 
in  the  same  mood.  One  of  them,  speaking  on  the  sub- 
ject one  day,  after  advancing  the  usual  excuse  that  it 
was  all  England's  fault,  said  that  they  had  done  all 
they  could  to  enlist  American  sympathy,  and  had  failed ; 
''Et  nous  en  avons  fait  notre  deuil."  He  spread  out  his 
arms  wide,  grew  red  in  the  sudden  gust  of  passion  that 
swept  him,  and  cried: 

"If  we  have  to  fight  the  whole  world  we  will  do  it!" 
It  was  nearly  a  week  before  any  public  official  ref- 
erence to  the  Lusitania  was  permitted  in  Brussels,  and 
then  there  was  posted  on  the  walls  an  affiche.  Nothing, 
perhaps,  could  better  have  set  forth  the  immaturity  of 
the  mind  it  expressed  than  this  piece  of  special  pleading, 
with  its  illogic,  its  disregard  of  the  most  rudimentary 
understanding  of  the  laws  of  evidence  and  of  the  rules 
by  which  enlightened  men  fix  responsibility.  It  ended, 
as  the  officer's  statement  had  ended — as  most  all  of  their 

614 


THE  LUSITANIA 

contentions  indeed  ended — with  the  statement  that  they 
"now  had  proved  that  it  was  all  England's  fault."  ^ 

*  NOUVELLES   PUBLIEES   Par   LE   GoUVERNEMENT 

General  Allemand 

Berlin,  11  mai. — Le  gouvernement  des  Etats-Unis  d'Amerique  et 
les  gouvernements  des  puissances  neutres  ont  re9u  la  note  suivante 
par  I'entremise  du  representant  imperial  accredite  dans  leurs  pays: 

Le  gouvernement  imperial  regrette  sincerement  les  pertes  de 
vies  humaines  causees  par  la  destruction  du  Lusitania,  mais  il  se 
voit  cependant  oblige  de  decliner  toute  responsabilite !  L'Angleterre, 
en  essayant  d'afFamer  I'Allemagne,  a  contraint  celle-ci  a  user  de 
mesures  de  represailles.  En  reponse  a  la  proposition  de  I'Allemagne 
de  cesser  la  guerre  sous-marine  si  I'Angleterre  renon9ait  a  vouloir 
afFamer  I'empire  allemand,  les  Anglais  ont  applique  un  blocus  plus 
severe  encore.  Les  navires  de  commerce  anglais  ne  peuvent  etre 
consideres  comme  des  navires  marchands  ordinaires,  car  ils  sont 
d'habitade  armes  et  ont  tente  plusieurs  fois  de  faire  couler  nos 
navires  en  entrant  en  collision  avec  eux.  Pour  cette  raison,  il  nous 
est  impossible  de  les  visiter.  Le  secretaire  du  Parlement  anglais, 
repondant  a  une  demande  de  Lord  Beresford,  a  declare  derniere- 
ment  que  pour  ainsi  dire  tous  les  navires  marchands  anglais  sont 
a  present  armes  et  pourvus  de  grenades  a  main.  D'ailleurs  les 
journaux  du  Royaume-Uni  avouent  franchement  que  le  Lusitania 
6tait  arme  de  canons.  Le  gouvernement  imperial  sait,  en  outre, 
que  le  Lusitania,  lors  de  ses  dernieres  traversees,  avait  en  plusieurs 
fois  une  forte  cargaison  de  materiel  de  guerre  a  bord ;  les  vapeurs  de 
la  Compagnie  Cunard  Mauretania  et  Lusitania  etant  plus  ou  moins 
a  I'abri  des  attaques  des  sous-marins  grace  a  leur  grande  vitesse, 
ont  servi  de  preference  aux  transports  de  materiel  de  guerre.  II 
est  prouve  que  le  Lusitania,  pendant  son  dernier  voyage,  avait 
5,400  caisses  de  munitions  a  bord.  Le  reste  de  la  cargaison  etait 
aussi  en  grande  partie  de  la  contrebande.  Abstraction  faite  d'un 
avertissement  general,  le  gouvernement  allemand  avait  cette  fois 
prevenu  specialement  le  public  par  I'intermediaire  de  I'ambassadeur 
comte   de    Bernstorff.      Les   neutres   n'ont   cependant    aucunement 

615 


BELGIUM 

Meantime,  while  the  President  was  bearing  the  great- 
est burden  that  any  American  had  borne  since  Lincohi, 

tenu  compte  de  cet  avertissement,  qui  a  meme  ete  I'objet  des  rail- 
leries de  la  presse  anglaise  et  de  la  Compagnie  Cunard.  Si  I'An- 
gleterre  a  repondu  a  cet  avertissement  en  niant  tout  danger  et  en 
pretextant  I'existenee  de  mesures  de  protection  suffisantes;  c'est  elle 
qui  a  amene  les  passagers  a  ignorer  les  conseils  du  gouvernement 
allemand  et  a  s'embarquer  sur  le  Lusitania,  condamne  a  la  destruc- 
tion par  son  armament  et  sa  cargaison,  et  c'est  I'Angleterre  seule  qui 
est  responsable  de  la  perte  de  vies  humaines  que  le  gouvernement 
allemand  regrette  tres  profondement. 

Le  Gouvernement  General  en  Belgique. 

Translation 
»  News  Published 

By  the  German  Government 

Berlin,  May  11. — The  Government  of  the  United  States  of 
America  and  the  Governments  of  the  neutral  Powers  have  re- 
ceived the  following  note  by  the  imperial  representative  accredited 
to  their  countries: 

The  imperial  Government  sincerely  regrets  the  loss  of  human 
lives  caused  by  the  destruction  of  the  Lusitania,  but  it  finds  itself 
obliged  to  decline  all  responsibility.  England  in  trying  to  starve 
Germany  has  forced  her  to  take  measures  of  reprisal.  In  response 
to  the  suggestion  from  Germany  that  the  submarine  warfare 
would  be  stopped  if  England  would  renounce  her  desire  to  starve 
the  German  Empire,  the  English  applied  a  still  more  severe  block- 
ade. The  English  merchant-ships  can  not  be  considered  as  ordinary 
merchant-ships  because  they  carry  arms  and  have  several  times 
tried  to  sink  our  ships  by  ramming  them.  For  this  reason  it  is 
impossible  for  us  to  visit  them.  The  secretary  of  the  English 
Parliament,  replying  to  a  question  from  Lord  Beresford,  declarred 
recently  that  all  the  English  merchant-ships,  so  to  speak,  are  at 
present  armed  and  provided  with  hand-grenades.  Besides,  the 
newspapers  of  the  United  Kingdom  avow  frankly  that  the  Lusi- 

616 


THE  LUSITANIA 

and  bearing  it,  as  we  were  so  proud  to  feel,  as  Lincoln 
would  have  borne  it,  we  could  only  live  on  in  uncertainty 
from  day  to  day,  and  try  to  appear  in  public  uncon- 

tania  was  armed  with  cannons.  The  Imperial  Government  knows, 
furthermore,  that  the  Lusitania,  during  its  recent  trips  had  had 
several  times  a  heavy  cargo  of  war  material  on  board;  the  Cunard 
Company's  steamships  Mauretania  and  Lusitania,  being  more  or 
less  immune  from  submarine  attack  on  account  of  their  great 
speed,  have  been  given  preference  in  the  transport  of  war  material. 
It  is  proved  that  the  Lusitania,  during  her  last  voyage,  had  5,400 
cases  of  munitions  on  board.  The  rest  of  the  cargo  was  for  the 
most  part  contraband.  Setting  aside  the  general  advertisement, 
the  Imperial  Government  had  specially  warned  the  public,  through 
the  intermediary  of  Ambassador  the  Count  de  BemstorfF.  The 
neutrals,  however,  took  absolutely  no  account  of  this  advertise- 
ment, which  was,  indeed,  the  object  of  jeers  from  the  English 
Press  and  from  the  Cunard  Company.  If  England  replied  to  this 
advertisement  by  denying  all  danger,  and  by  pretending  the  exist- 
ence of  sufficient  protective  measures,  it  is  she  who  has  led  the 
passengers  to  ignore  the  warnings  of  the  German  Government  and 
to  embark  on  the  Lusitania,  condemned  to  destruction  by  her  arma- 
ment and  her  cargo,  and  it  is  England  alone  who  is  responsible  for 
the  loss  of  human  lives,  which  the  German  Government  very  pro- 
foundly vregrets. 

The  General  Government  in  Belgium. 


NOUVELLES   PUBLIEES   PaR    LE    GoUVERNEMENT 

General  Allemand 

Berlin,  15  mai. — II  resulte  du  rapport  du  sous-marin  qui  a  fait 
sombler  le  Lusitania  que  ce  vapeur,  qui  ne  portait  pas  de  pavilion, 
a  ete  aper9u  le  7  mai,  a  2  h.  20  m.  de  I'apres-midi  (heure  centrale), 
pres  de  la  cote  meridionale  de  I'lrlande,  par  un  beau  temps  clair. 
A  3  h.  10  m.  le  sous-marin  a  lance  une  torpille  qui  a  atteint  le  Lusi- 
tania a  tribord,  pres  de  la  pesserelle  de  commandement.     La  deto- 

617 


BELGIUM 

cerned  and  to  discourage  the  rumours  that  our  trunks 
were  all  packed  and  that  we  were  ready  to  leave.  The 
opinion  in  Brussels  was  that  if  the  incident  did  not  bring 
our  countries  to  war  it  would,  at  least,  result  in  a  rup- 
ture of  diplomatic  relations.  Brussels  was  torn  between 
a  great  desire  and  a  great  fear ;  the  one  to  have  a  new 
and  powerful  ally  ranged  at  her  side,  the  other  lest  the 
ravitaillement  cease.  It  was  pathetic  to  note  the  people, 
especially  the  poor,  who  passed  the  Legation  many  times 
a  day  and  looked  up  at  the  balcony  to  see  if  the  flag 
was  still  there ;  they  would  glance  up  half  fearfully  and 
then,  beholding  it  on  its  staff,  turn  away  satisfied. 

We  had,  indeed,  packed  our  trunks  and  were  ready 
to  leave.  We  had  sent  all  our  important  documents  to 
The  Hague.  Mr.  Hoover  had  given  orders  that  as  much 
food  as  possible  be  shipped  to  Rotterdam  and  into  Brus- 

nation  de  la  torpille  a  ete  suivie  immediatement  d'une  autre  explo- 
sion d'une  violence  extraordinaire.  Le  navire  s'est  incline  a  tribord 
et  a  commence  a  s'enfoncer.  Le  deuxieme  explosion  ne  pent  s'ex- 
pliquer  que  par  la  deflagration  des  fortes  quantites  de  munitions  qui 
se  trouvaient  a  bord. 

•        •         •         •         • 

Translation 

Berlin,  May  15. — It  is  shown  from  the  report  of  the  submarine 
which  sank  the  Lusitania  that  this  ship,  which  carried  no  flag,  was 
sighted  on  the  7  May  at  2:20  P.M.  (central  time)  near  the  south- 
ern coast  of  Ireland,  a  fine,  clear  day.  At  3:10  the  submarine 
fired  a  torpedo  which  struck  the  Lusitania  on  the  starboard  side, 
near  the  commander's  bridge.  The  detonation  of  the  torpedo  was 
followed  immediately  by  another  explosion  of  extraordinary  vio- 
lence. The  ship  listed  to  starboard  and  began  to  sink.  The  sec- 
ond explosion  can  be  explained  only  by  the  deflagration  of  the 
great  quantities  of  niunitions  that  were  on  board. 

618 


THE  LUSITANIA 

sels,  and  we  waited.  Then  one  morning  de  Leval  came 
up  to  my  room,  quite  early,  with  a  copy  of  the  Kolnische 
Zeitung  and  read  to  me  a  despatch  saying  that  Count 
Bernstorff  and  Mr.  Bryan  had  opened  pourparlers  in 
the  hope  of  settling  the  whole  matter,  and  that  mean- 
while the  submarines  would  abstain  from  torpedoing 
Americans.  There  was  a  visible  detente.  The  German 
newspapers  suddenly  sang  small,  lowered  their  tone, 
ceased  to  straff  en  America.  Brussels  breathed  more 
easily,  and  admired,  with  us,  the  President's  note,  when 
it  finally  made  its  way  into  Belgium;  La  Belgique  had 
published  it,  but  with  certain  passages  deleted,  and 
others  so  distorted  that  the  Belgians  thought  for  a  day 
that  the  President  had  intended  to  pay  compliments  to 
Germany. 

The  suiSpense  was  lessened,  though  it  never  quite  wore 
itself  away,  but  lurked  there  always  in  our  subconscious- 
ness, just  as  the  submarines  lurked  in  the  nether  seas. 
It  was  a  suspense  to  which  we  were  to  grow  accus- 
tomed, so  far  as  we  can  grow  accustomed  to  suspense, 
for  we  were  to  live  thereafter  for  nearly  two  years 
literally  from  day  to  day,  expecting  each  morning  to 
usher  in  the  event  we  were  certain  was  inevitable.  The 
Germans,  of  course,  must  have  their  final  fling,  the 
last  word,  and  it  was  a  last  word  characteristic  of  those 
who  put  their  faith  in  the  puerile  principle  of  the  last 
word.  They  blazoned  on  all  the  walls  of  Brussels  an 
affiche  announcing  that  the  passengers  on  board  the 
Lusitania  were  warned  in  time;  that  the  ship,  carried  not 
only  munitions  but  soldiers  as  well,  and  that  just  before 
sailing  the  passengers  had  all  gone  ashore  in  fear,  but 
that  when  Captain  Turner  announced  that  he  would  ac- 
cord a  reduction  of  ten  dollars  in  the  passage  money  all 

619 


BELGIUM 

of  the  timid  passengers,  save  twelve,  finding  this  lure 
irresistible,  had  remained  on  board.^ 

*  NOUVELLES    PUBLIEES    PaR    LE    GoUVERNEMENT 

General  Allemand 
Nouvelles  allemandes  quotidiennes 

Cologne,  2  juin. — La  Koelnische  Zeitung  mande  de  Stockholm: 
Un  Suedois  venant  d'Amerique  a  fait  une  revelation  interessante 
au  sujet  de  la  catastrophe  du  Lusitania.  Ce  Suedois,  qui  voulait 
aller  directement  d'Amerique  en  Norwege,  a  raconte  ce  qui  suit 
au  Svenska  Dagblat:  Le  vapeur  que  je  voulais  prendre  a  leve 
I'ancre  trois  heures  apres  le  Lusitania  et  j'ai  assiste  au  depart 
de  ce  navire.  Tous  les  passagers  furent  avertis  a  temps  que  le 
Lusitania  avait  a  bord  non  seulement  des  munitions,  mais  aussi 
des  soldats,  et  ces  avertissements,  aussi  clairs  que  possible,  eurent 
pour  consequence  d'inquieter  tous  les  passagers  quant  aux  dan- 
gers du  voyage  et  de  les  decider  a  redescendre  a  terre  pour 
s'embarquer  sur  un  autre  vapeur.  Lorsque  le  capitaine  Turner,  du 
Lusitania,  apprit  cela,  il  annon9a  qu'il  accordait  aux  passagers  une 
reduction  de  10  dollars  par  personne.  Sauf  12  personnes  qui 
persisterent  dans  leur  intention  de  quitter  le  navire,  tous  les  pas- 
sagers, seduits  par  I'offre  du  capitaine,  resterent  a  bord. 

Le  GoirVERNEMENT  GENERAL  EN  BeLOIQUE. 

(Translation :) 

News  Published 
By  THE  German  General  Government 

German  Daily  Report 
Berlin,  June  3 

Cologne,  June  2. — The  Kolnische  Zeitung  reports  from  Stock- 
holm: A  Swede  coming  from  America  made  an  interesting  revela- 
tion  on   the   subject  of  the   catastrophe  of  the  Lusitania.      This 

620 


THE  LUSITANIA 

While  all  Brussels  with  upturned  eyes  was  watching 
the  staiF  on  the  American  Legation  in  the  hope  of  see- 
ing that  the  red,  white,  and  blue  flag  was  still  there,  it 
was  also  watching  the  Italian  Legation,  over  in  the  Bou- 
levard Bischoffsheim,  in  the  hope  of  seeing  that  the  red, 
white,  and  green  flag  had  come  down.  The  interest  in 
Italy  had  been  for  weeks  exceedingly  keen.  Crowds  stood 
all  day  long  before  the  Italian  Legation  and  before 
the  residence  of  Baron  Reseis,  the  Italian  Charge  d' Af- 
faires, waiting  for  the  moment  when  the  absence  of  the 
flag  would  indicate  that  Italy  had  joined  forces  with 
the  Allies. 

"L'ltalie  entrera-t-elle  dans  la  danse?**  was  the  ques- 
tion that  men  put  to  each  other  when  they  met.  The 
gossips  could  tell  you  of  Reseis's  every  moment,  how 
often  he  went  to  see  von  der  Lancken,  how  he  looked 
when  he  came  away,  whether  pleased  or  ill-pleased, 
whether  his  monocle  was  coolly  in  his  eye  or  dangling 
nervously  by  its  cord,  how  von  der  Lancken  had  treated 

Swede,  who  wanted  to  go  directly  from  America  to  Norway,  gave 
the  following  account  to  the  S<venska  Dagblat:  The  ship  that  I 
wanted  to  take  weighed  anchor  three  hours  after  the  Lusitania, 
and  I  was  present  at  the  sailing  of  this  ship.  All  the  passengers 
were  warned  in  time  that  the  Lusitania  had  on  board,  not  only 
munitions  but  also  soldiers;  and  these  warnings,  which  were  as 
clear  as  possible,  had  the  effect  of  disturbing  all  the  passengers 
concerning  the  dangers  of  the  voyage  and  of  making  them  decide 
to  return  to  shore  in  order  to  take  passage  on  another  steamer. 
When  Captain  Turner,  of  the  Lusitania,  learned  this  he  announced 
that  he  would  grant  to  the  passengers  a  reduction  of  10  dollars 
apiece.  Excepting  12  persons,  who  persisted  in  their  intention  of 
leaving  the  ship,  all  the  passengers,  seduced  by  the  offer  of  the 
Captain,  remained  on  board. 

The  General  Government  in  Belgium. 
621 


BELGIUM 

him,  and  all  that.  And  they  watched  with  eager  interest 
the  movement  of  the  drama  toward  its  climax ;  now  the 
signs  were  growing  more  and  more  decisive,  and  with 
Italy  in  the  line  they  felt  the  war  to  be  all  but  over, 
the  victorious  end  in  sight,  the  King  coming  home.  There 
was  something  pathetic  in  the  constant  hopes  and  re- 
assurance as  in  the  retrospect  there  is  something  tragic, 
in  their  repeated  deceptions  and  cruel  disappointments. 

But  at  last  the  day  came;  the  flag  was  down.  Italy 
had  broken  off  diplomatic  relations.  Reseis  had  packed 
up  and  was  ready  to  go;  he  had  applied  for  his  pass- 
ports. 

There  was  an  Italian  gentleman  in  Brussels,  Count 
Chicogni,  who  had  rendered  valuable  services  in  connec- 
tion with  the  relief  work.  He  was  in  Holland  when 
the  rupture  came,  having  gone  there  on  a  laissez- passer 
that  had  been  issued  to  him  at  my  request,  and  on  my 
assurance  that  he  would  return.  He  might  have  re- 
mained, of  course,  in  Holland  but  he  came  back  at  once, 
surrendered  his  laissez-passer  because  he  had  given  his 
word  to  me  to  return,  and  then  in  his  own  name  asked 
for  another  permitting  him  to  leave.  I  hastened  to  sa- 
lute him,  to  tell  him  of  my  admiration  for  his  conduct. 
He  flushed  red: 

''On  ne  pent  pas  faire  autrementf*  he  said. 

He  paid  for  his  chivalry,  however.  Instead  of  behold- 
ing something  admirable  in  the  conduct  that  proved  him 
so  fine  a  gentleman,  the  German  authorities  regarded  it 
as  highly  suspicious,  and  were  perplexed.  ''II  y  a  quel- 
quechose  de  louche  la-dedans,''  one  of  them  said.  Count 
Chicogni's  passport  was  thereupon  refused;  it  was  even 
rumoured  that  he  would  be  imprisoned  as  an  officer  in 
the  Italian  Reserve.    The  town  talked  of  nothing  else 

622 


THE  LUSITANIA 

for  days.  Baron  Reseis's  movements  were  noted  more 
closely  than  ever,  and  one  day  when  he  and  Count  Chi- 
cogni  had  gone  to  demand  their  passports  and  had  come 
away  from  the  ministere  empty-handed,  Reseis  in  indig- 
nation, there  were  stories  of  terrible  scenes  in  the  yellow 
salon.  We  all  participated  more  or  less  in  the  excite- 
ment and  suspense  that  were  so  wearing  on  the  nerves 
of  Reseis  and  Chicogni. 

Then  Italy  declared  war.  The  news  came  on  Pente- 
cost, when  every  one  was  out  of  doors  along  the  boule- 
vards, in  the  Bois,  in  the  Foret  de  Soignes,  great  crowds 
in  summer  clothes — of  a  former  summer,  to  be  sure,  but 
summer  clothes  nevertheless,  and  their  wearers,  all  happy 
in  the  assurance  of  early  victory  and  peace.  There  were 
those  who  were  dreaming  of  new  summer  clothes,  and 
St.  Moritz  for  August,  for  it  was  said  that  the  Germans 
would  now  fall  back  along  the  line  of  the  Meuse  and 
abandon  Brussels.  The  people  were  not  allowed  to  cele- 
brate the  new  alliance,  of  course ;  they  were  not  allowed 
to  express  their  gratitude  and  their  sympathy  with  the 
Italians  by  displaying  the  Italian  colours,  as  they  would 
have  liked  to  do ;  so,  as  the  latest  expression  of  la  zwanze 
briuvelloise,  in  all  the  shop-windows  there  were  exposed 
quantities  of  macaroni. 

The  Germans  posted  a  great  blue  ajJicTie,  complaining 
of  Italy  for  breaking  her  treaties ;  they  were  shocked  by 
such  immorality,  and  enumerated  all  the  advantages,  in 
the  way  of  Austrian  territory,  that  Germany  had  gener- 
ously offered  Italy  not  to  break  them.  But  they  showed 
no  signs  of  falling  back  along  the  Meuse.  Over  at  the 
Politische  Abteilung  one  of  the  officers  told  Villalobar 
that  they  had  not  decided  yet  where  to  have  their  Kom- 
mandantur  in  Italy,  whether  at  Florence  or  at  Venice. 

623 


BELGIUM 

'^Si  j'etah  a  voire  place/'  said  the  Marquis,  who  saw 
the  humour  in  every  situation,  ''je  la  mettrais  plutot  a 
Naples" 

Then  Brussels  began  to  talk  about  Roumania. 

''La  Roumanie"  they  would  say,  ''va-t-elle  entrer 
dans  la  danse?" 

And  it  was  in  the  high  hope  which  the  joining  of  the 
new  ally  inspired  in  them,  and  the  prospect  of  still  an- 
other new  ally  in  Roumania,  that  Brussels  entered  upon 
the  summer. 

The  lovely  chestnut-tree  which  we  could  see  from  our 
window  across  the  green  of  the  garden  and  over  the 
tiles  of  the  roofs,  had  shed  its  pink  bloom.  The  white 
fa9ades  of  the  closed  houses  were  blinding  in  the  unac- 
customed glare  of  the  sun.  At  the  Palais  des  Academies 
there  were  German  convalescents  basking  in  the  park, 
looking  like  zanies  in  their  costumes  of  blue-and-white 
ticking.  At  certain  Maternity  Homes  extensive  prep- 
arations were  being  made  to  receive  the  nuns  from  the 
convents  in  the  eastern  provinces  of  Belgium — ^victims 
of  German  soldiers ;  their  hour  was  approaching.  When 
I  met  my  melancholy  young  German  doctor  of  philos- 
ophy who  was  so  unappreciated  at  German  headquar- 
ters, walking  moodily  along  the  Rue  Ducale,  and 
stopped  and  asked  him  how  he  was,  he  shook  his  head 
sadly  and  said: 

(7a  na  fa  pas  pein  .  .  ,  on  se  tue  bartout — le  monde 
est  devenu  fou." 

The  Governor-General,  who  all  the  spring  had  been 
seeking  a  chateau,  had  found  one  at  last — the  chateau  of 
the  Orbans,  "Trois  Fontaines,"  near  Vilvorde — and 
when  the  owner  refused  i;o  rent  it,  had  requisitioned  it. 

The  story  ran  in  Brussels  th^t  when  the  Governor- 

624 


THE  LUSITANIA 

General  offered  the  owner  of  the  chateau  1,000  francs  a 
month  as  rental,  the  owner  replied : 

"I  can  accept  no  money  from  you.  If  you  want  it  you 
can,  of  course,  take  it  by  force." 

"Then,"  said  the  Governor-General,  *'I  shall  turn  that 
amount  over  to  the  village  of  Vilvorde  for  the  poor." 

"But  they  will  not  accept  it  either." 

Von  Bissing  then  asked  that  he  be  assured  that  there 
would  be  no  interference  with  the  water,  with  the  elec- 
tric lights,  etc. 

"I  can  give  no  such  assurance,"  said  the  gentle- 
man. "You  must  take  your  chances.  I  am  Belgian; 
I  am  your  enemy.  If  you  don't  like  it,  send  me  to  Ger- 
many." 

And  so  the  Governor-General  turned  over  the  amount 
of  the  rental  to  the  poor  of  Vilvorde — I  do  not  know 
whether  it  was  accepted  or  not — and  retired  to  the 
"Trois  Fontaines"  for  the  summer. 


LXXVI 

AIR   RAIDS 

I  WAS  awakened  one  morning  in  that  June,  the  sev- 
enth of  the  month,  by  what  I  thought  was  thunder ;  but 
no,  there  was  that  sharp  resonant  explosion,  three  times 
— a  shell,  evidently.  I  got  up  and  went  to  my  window. 
It  was  half-past  two  o'clock  and  the  dawn  was  break* 
ing  over  the  huddled  roofs,  whose  tiles  and  chimney- 
pots gave  the  illusion  of  upholding  the  quadriga  of  the 
Cinquantenaire.  A  moon  in  the  last  quarter,  with  the 
dull  glitter  of  old  battered  silver,  hung  in  the  pale  sky, 
and  near  it  the  morning  star.  There  was  the  cool  breath, 
,the  stillness,  the  solemnity,  of  dawn,  and  a  touch  of  deli- 
cate rose  in  the  heaven.  Then,  suddenly,  those  sharp 
reports  again.  One  by  one  the  windows  along  the  Rue 
de  Treves  were  opened  and  heads  popped  out. 

''C'est  wn  aeroplane f'  said  the  inevitable  wiseacre  to 
be  found  in  all  crowds,  with  his  satisfied  and  important 
air. 

The  agent  de  police,  glad  of  human  companionship  in 
his  vigils,  sauntered  into  the  middle  of  the  street  and 
addressed  the  out-thrust  heads  above  him;  he  spoke 
in  Flemish,  and  I  did  not  know  what  he  was  saying, 
but  every  one  laughed,  though  nervously,  and  the  po- 
liceman was  evidently  satisfied — avenged  momentarily, 
no  doubt,  by  some  zwanze,  for  having  to  salute  the  arro- 
gant conquerors.  The  man  across  the  street,  who  was 
always  reading  novels  at  his  upper  window,  now  un- 
locked his  door  with  a  great  rattle  of  keys,  came  out 

626 


AIR  RAIDS 

into  the  street  and  joined  the  agent;  they  sauntered  off 
to  the  corner.  Some  one  sneezed  and  every  one  laughed. 
Then  it  was  still. 

And  there  in  the  lovely  dawn  we  watched  and  listened. 
The  shells,  solemnly,  not  unmusically,  boomed  in  the 
silence,  incessantly.  We  saw  nothing  at  first,  then  out 
over  the  roofs  toward  the  north-east,  beyond  the  Cin- 
quantenaire,  in  the  direction  of  Evere,  high  in  the  sky, 
we  detected  flashes  of  fire,  gone  before  one  could  point 
them  out,  shells  exploding  in  the  air,  and  we  knew  that 
the  allied  aviators  had  come  to  bomb  the  Zeppelins  at 
Evere,  their  great  hangar  painted  in  varicoloured  stripes, 
as  though  by  a  futurist  painter ;  camoufle — though  the 
old  French  word  in  the  new  meaning  the  war  gave  it 
had  not  come  to  Brussels  then. 

And  then  suddenly  there  was  another  sound — two  dull 
explosions,  in  a  lower,  heavier,  more  muffled  note ;  sure- 
ly, one  thought,  bombs  falling  on  the  hangar.  Then  a 
furious  cannonade,  and  the  flashes  in  the  sky,  and  then 
all  was  still  again.    We  waited. 

Then — the  ronflement  of  a  motor,  and  there,  high  in 
the  sky,  a  monoplane  was  flying  toward  the  north;  the 
firing  began  again.  Having  now  fixed  the  dramatic 
center  of  that  strange  conflict  in  the  air,  it  was  easier  to 
follow  it.  The  shrapnel  was  exploding  below  and 
around  the  monoplane,  flashes  of  fire — but  the  youth 
sailed  on.  ... 

The  Rue  de  Treves  was  filled  with  men  gazing  up- 
ward, one  man  having  thoughtfully  provided  himself 
with  binoculars.  All  Brussels  was  awake  and  watching, 
following  with  bated  breath  and  intense,  affectionate 
sympathy  that  unknown  friend  flying  so  high  in  the 
northern  sky.    One  was  acutely  conscious  of  a  prayer 

627 


BELGIUM 

in  all  hearts — universal  aspiration  going  up  from  the 
silent  city  toward  that  brave,  unknown  flyer  there  out 
of  sight,  in  God's  sweet  dawn,  and  the  guns  making  a 
kind  of  solemn  music  all  the  while. 

It  was  well  on  toward  three  o'clock  and  quite  light,  the 
sky  gold  and  rose  all  around  to  the  east,  and  not  a 
cloud.  He  soared  aloft  there,  going  north,  higher  and 
higher,  smaller  and  smaller,  the  guns  booming  on  in  the 
solemn  stillness,  the  shells  flashing  into  sheets  of  flame, 
leaving  little  white  balls  of  smoke  behind,  exploding 
about  him  while  we  watched;  would  one  reach  him? 

It  was  a  beautiful,  inspiring  sight,  that  battle  in  the 
air,  in  the  still  and  lovely  dawn,  symbolic,  somehow; 
the  old  conflict  between  the  Prince  of  the  Powers  of  the 
Air  and  the  Prince  of  the  Powers  of  Darkness.  What 
bravery,  what  heroic  daring.  That  lad  up  there,  some 
fair,  clean,  beautiful  English  boy,  with  his  traditions  of 
honour,  who  had  flown  up  out  of  France,  across  the  hell 
of  those  trenches,  and  unerringly  in  the  moonlight  to 
that  spot  where  he  had  a  tryst  with  the  dawn.  There 
in  the  morning  light,  exposed  to  all  dangers,  seen  of 
all  men — not  skulking  like  those  submarines  in  nether 
darkness,  stealing  up  and  striking  a  treacherous,  cow- 
ardly blow  at  the  innocent,  at  non-combatants,  at  wom- 
en and  children!  The  implications  of  it  all  were  tre- 
mendous. That  unknown  youth  in  the  skies  that  serene 
morning  was  the  darling  of  half  a  million  Brussels 
hearts;  their  greetings,  their  gratitude  must  have  risen 
to  him  in  waves  that  were  almost  palpable;  he  might 
almost  have  been  imagined  then  as  waving  friendly 
hands — the  sign  of  that  democracy  for  which  he  was 
risking  his  life!  .  .  . 

He  was  flying  serenely  on  and  up,  like  some  glorious 

628 


AIR  RAIDS 

bird,  never  turning,  never  swerving,  sailing  on  in  a 
kind  of  majesty.  He  disappeared  behind  one  of  the 
old  chimney-pots;  then  appeared  again  across  the  red 
tiles.  The  guns  fired  a  last  shot,  the  shells  flashed  spite- 
fully in  the  clear  morning  sky;  then  against  its  blue  a 
cloud  of  smoke  arose,  and  we  said  that  the  hangar  was 
burning,  that  the  aviator  had  accomplished  his  mission 
and  was  safely  on  his  way  back  to  the  lines  of  the  Al- 
lies. Rue  de  Treves  was  excited  for  awhile — then  went 
back  to  sleep. 

At  nine  o'clock  that  morning  a  company  of  German 
troops  went  trudging  in  their  clumsy  boots  down  the  Rue 
de  Treves.  They  plodded  along,  heads  hanging,  sing- 
ing lugubriously,  evidently  under  orders.  It  was  a  sad, 
sodden  kind  of  singing  and  the  Rue  de  Treves  laughed 
and  knew  the  man  of  the  air  had  succeeded.  The  Ger- 
mans would,  of  course,  do  something  to  show  that  they 
did  not  care. 

And  then  Marie,  my  wife's  maid,  popped  in,  all  ex- 
citement. 

^'Oh,  Monsieur  le  Mimstre!  Les  avians  out  detruit 
le  hangar  a  Evere,  et  le  Zeppelin  qu'il  contenait!  Le 
laitier  vient  de  me  le  dire!  II  y  en  avait  six — il  les  a 
vmr 

She  stopped  to  catch  her  breath. 

^^Je  me  suis  eveillee  aux  deux  explosions — bomb! 
bomb!  et  j'ai  couru  vite^  vite!'' 

She  ran  out  and  was  back  at  once;  some  one  had 
arrived  with  confirmation.  The  streets  all  about  Evere 
were  barred,  the  hangar  and  the  Zeppelin  therein  de- 
stroyed. All  the  people  at  Auderghem  had  been  at  their 
windows,  and  all  exclaiming,  as  they  watched  the  avia- 
tor: 

629 


BELGIUM 

''Que'Scdnt  Antoine  le  garde!  Que  Saint  Antoine  le 
gardeT 

The  population  at  Evere  mocked  the  Germans  dur- 
ing the  attack ;  the  people  ran  out  in  their  night  clothes, 
and  one  Belgian  got  out  a  cornet  and  played  "La  Bra- 
bancjonne !" 

De  Leval  had  spent  the  night  out  at  the  chateau 
Charles-Albert,  at  Boitsfort,  had  been  awakened  by  the 
noise  of  the  motors,  and  had  seen  it  all;  he  had  seen 
the  aeroplanes  flying  across  the  Foret  de  Soignes,  there 
were  ten  of  them,  he  said;  he  had  seen  them  circle  over 
the  hangar,  one  swooping  very  low. 

Then  at  eleven  o'clock  fair  Inez  came,  riding  by  on  her 
bicycle,  all  rosy  with  smiles,  and  very  pretty  and  charm- 
ing in  a  fresh  linen  morning  gown  (the  day  was  very 
warm) .  She  had  arisen  and  with  her  maid  had  pedalled 
out  to  Evere ;  had  heard  that  eight  German  soldiers  were 
killed,  one  badly  mangled. 

Topping  had  seen  it  all  too ;  he  was  sitting  up  reading 
and  had  seen  the  aeroplanes,  six  or  more,  arriving  in  the 
form  of  a  flying  wedge,  and  he  watched  the  battle.^ 

Thus  all  morning  the  stories  came  in,  until  in  the  af- 
ternoon a  gentleman  from  Mont  St.  Amand,  near 
Ghent,  called  at  the  Legation  to  say  that  at  half-past 
two  that  morning  four  aeroplanes  had  flown  over  Ghent 
and  that  the  Zeppelin  there  arose  to  meet  them;  they 
flew  high  over  it  and,  dropping  bombs,  destroyed  it  so 
that  it  fell  and  was  shattered  to  pieces,  killing  the 
twenty-three  Germans  in  it.  But  a  shell  also  struck  a 
convent  and  killed  a  nun  and  a  girl  living  in  the  convent, 
the  daughter  of  a  Belgian  officer.  The  man  brought 
me  a  piece  of  the  frame  of  the  Zeppelin  as  a  "souvenir/* 

And  so  Brussels  was  smiling  that  day,  much  encour- 

630 


AIR  RAIDS 

aged.    The  exploit  had  small  military  significance,  per- 
haps, but  it  cheered  the  people. 

"Ca  prouvef'  said  one  man,  "qu'on  pense  a  nous!" 
No  one  went  to  the  Germans  for  passes  or  other 
favours  that  day.    No  newspapers  were  permitted,  and 
they  kept  companies  of  soldiers  marching  about  the  city 
all  day  singing! 

A  German  officer,  speaking  to  an  American  just  then 
in  Brussels,  Mr.  Montgomery,  said : 

"It  must  have  been  an  Englishman;  he  was  so  brave!" 
And  so  it  was.  The  attack  on  the  hangar  was  made 
not  by  ten,  or  by  six,  but  by  two  men,  Flight-Lieuten- 
ants J.  P.  Wilson  and  J.  S.  Mills,  R.N.  The  hero  of 
the  dramatic  conflict  at  Ghent  was  Flight-Sub-Lieu- 
tenant R.  A.  J.  Warneford,  R.N.,  who  was  killed  so 
short  a  time  afterwards,  with  Henry  Beach  Needham, 
at  Paris. 


LXXVII 

THE  STRIKE  AT  MALINES 

There  were  those  in  Brussels  who  did  not  hesitate 
to  predict  that  the  city  would  be  compelled  to  pay  a 
heavy  fine  as  a  penalty  for  the  raid  of  the  allied  air- 
men, and,  while  the  two  cases  were  not  alike,  they  could 
point  to  Malines  as  a  precedent  and  as  an  example  of 
how  a  whole  community  could  be  punished.  For  a  week 
Malines  had  been  incommunicado^  blockaded,  the  popu- 
lation shut  up  within  the  city  walls  and  cut  off  from 
all  contact  with  the  outside  world.  This  had  been  done 
because  the  workmen,  five  hundred  or  more,  employed 
in  the  Malines  arsenal,  had  refused  to  work  for  the  Ger- 
man authorities.  The  arsenal  was  not  an  arsenal  in  the 
military  sense,  but  the  machine-shops  where  the  locomo- 
tives operating  the  railways,  which  in  Belgium  belong 
to  the  state,  were  repaired.  The  Germans  had  of  course 
seized  the  railways  and  were  using  them,  and  when  the 
locomotives  needed  repairs  they  called  on  the  workmen 
to  eff*ect  them.  This  the  workmen  unanimously  refused 
to  do  on  the  ground  that  the  railways  were  used  by  the 
German  military  authorities  to  transport  troops,  and 
that  as  patriotic  Belgians  they  could  not  aid  the  Ger- 
mans in  this.  They  invoked  the  Hague  Convention  in 
support  of  their  position  but  the  Government  of  Occupa- 
tion insisted  that  the  work  was  not  at  all  in  the  interest 
of  the  German  army,  but  in  the  interest  of  commercial 
traffic  and  of  the  Belgian  population ;  and  to  make  this 
distinction  clear,  the  Governor-General  issued  a  state- 

632 


THE  STRIKE  AT  MALINES 

merit  which  insisted  that  "if  the  population  of  Malines  is 
cut  off  from  the  world.  ...  it  owes  it  to  the  strike  of 
the  workers.  By  such  a  machination,  the  origin  of  which 
may  be  easily  discovered,  the  intention  of  His  Excel- 
lency the  Governor-General  to  revive  the  economic  life 
of  Belgium  are  called  into  question  in  the  most  criminal 
manner,  to  the  detriment  of  the  entire  Belgium  popula- 
tion.^ 

^  Le  Gouverneur  General  a  fait  publier,  le  30  mai,  a  Malines,  un 
avis  disant  que,  si  mercredi  2  juin,  a  10  heures  du  matin,  500  ouv- 
riers  experimentes,  anciennement  occupes  aux  arsenaux,  ne  s'etaient 
pas  presentes  au  travail,  il  se  verrait  force  de  punir  la  ville  de 
Malines  et  les  environs  par  la  suspension  de  tout  trafic  economique, 
aussi  longtemps  que  des  ouvriers  en  nombre  suflSsant  n'auraient  pas 
repris  le  travail. 

Tel  n'a  pas  ete  le  cas.  II  s'agit  visiblement  dans  ce  refus  de 
travaiUer  d'un  accord  collectif.  II  y  a  lieu  de  considerer  que, 
par  I'avis  public  par  le  kreischef  de  Malines,  tout  citoyen  raison- 
nable  de  la  ville  a  pu  se  rendre  compte  que  le  travail  exige  n'est 
pas  a  faire  au  profit  de  I'armee  allemande,  mais  simplement  a  exec- 
uter  dans  I'interet  du  trafic  economique  de  la  population  beige. 

Ces  agissements  inexcusables  des  ouvriers  de  I'arsenal  de  Ma- 
lines ont  rendu  necessaire  I'application  de  mesures  coercitives  qui 
ont  deja  ete  portees  a  la  corinaissance  de  tous  par  raffichage  et  qui 
entreront  en  vigueur  le  3  juin  a  6  heures  du  matin. 

Si  la  population  de  Malines  est  coupee  du  monde  jusqu'au  moment 
ou  une  modification  se  produira  dans  la  situation  inadmissible  actu- 
elle,  elle  le  doit  a  la  greve  des  ouvriers.  Par  pareille  machination, 
dont  I'origine  peut  etre  facilement  retrouvee,  les  intentions  de 
S.E.M.  le  Gouverneur  general  de  faire  renaitre  la  vie  economique  en 
Belgique  sont  remises  en  question  de  la  fa9on  la  plus  criminelle, 
au  detriment  de  la  population  beige  tout  entiere. 

Translation 

The  Governor-General  caused  to  be  published,  on  the  30  May,  at 
Malines,  a  notice,  saying  that  if  on  Wednesday,  the  2  June,  at  10 

633 


BELGIUM 

This  solicitude,  however,  with  the  veiled  allusion  to  the 
Cardinal  by  which  it  was  accompanied,  was  all  lost  on 
the  stiff-necked  Belgian  workmen  and  on  the  sixth  of 
June  the  Governor-General  proclaimed  an  edict  stating 
that  "in  view  of  the  fact,  which  any  unprejudiced  person 
could  recognize  from  the  edict  of  the  twenty-fifth  of 
May,  the  German  administration  had  not  the  slightest 
intention  of  forcing  the  labourers  to  work  for  the  Ger- 
man Army,  and  that  as  the  work  in  question  was  solely 
in  the  interest  of  the  Belgian  population"  he  was 
"obliged  to  punish  the  city  of  Malines  and  its  environs 
by  arresting  all  economic  traffic  so  long  as  a  sufficient 

o'clock  in  the  morning,  500  experienced  workmen,  formerly  em- 
ployed in  the  arsenal,  had  not  presented  themselves  for  work,  he 
would  find  himself  obliged  to  punish  Malines  and  the  environs  by 
the  suspension  of  all  economic  traffic  so  long  as  the  workmen  in 
sufficient  numbers  did  not  return  to  work. 

Such  was  not  the  case.  In  this  refusal  to  work  there  was  ob- 
viously a  collective  agreement.  We  must  consider  that,  according 
to  the  notice  published  by  the  Kreischef  of  Malines,  every  reason- 
able citizen  of  the  city  could  have  satisfied  himself  that  the  work 
required  was  not  to  be  done  for  the  benefit  of  the  German  army, 
but  simply  to  be  executed  in  the  interest  of  the  economic  traffic 
of  the  Belgian  population. 

These  inexcusable  activities  of  the  workmen  of  the  arsenal  of 
Malines  have  made  necessary  the  application  of  coercive  measures, 
which  have  already  been  brought  to  the  knowledge  of  every  one 
by  the  posting  of  notices,  and  which  will  come  into  eff'ect  on  the 
3  June  at  6  o'clock  in  the  morning. 

If  the  population  of  Malines  is  cut  off  from  the  world  until  such 
time  as  there  shall  be  a  modification  in  the  present  intolerable 
situation,  it  owes  it  to  the  strike  of  the  workmen.  By  such  a  machi- 
nation, the  origin  of  which  may  be  easily  discovered,  the  inten- 
tions of  His  Excellency  the  Governor-General  to  revive  the  eco- 
nomic life  of  Belgium  are  called  into  question  in  the  most  criminal 
manner,  to  the  detriment  of  the  entire  Belgian  population. 

634 


THE  STRIKE  AT  MALINES 

number  of  workmen  in  the  arsenal  shall  not  have  re- 
sumed their  labours." 

And  so  all  traffic  and  all  travel  from  the  four  railway- 
stations  in  Malines  was  prohibited ;  no.  civilian  was  al- ' 
lowed  even  to  approach  the  stations;  all  circulation  of 
vehicles,  bicycles,  automobiles,  interurban  trams,  and 
canal-boats  was  forbidden;  even  the  rails  of  the  inter- 
urban tramways  were  taken  up,  and  the  office  for  pass- 
ports closed. 

"If  the  economic  life  of  Malines  and  its  environs," 
the  statement  concluded,  "which  I  have  endeavoured  es- 
pecially to  favour,  must  suffer  gravely  from  the  above- 
mentioned  measures,  the  fault  and  the  responsibility  will 
be  due  to  the  lack  of  foresight  on  the  part  of  the  work- 
ers in  the  arsenal  in  allowing  themselves  to  be  influ- 
enced by  their  ringleaders."  ^ 

^  A  L' Arsenal  de  Malines 

Avis  du  Gouverneur  General  en  Belgique  en  date  du  SO  mai  IQIS. 

M.  le  Chef  de  I'arrondissement  de  ISfalines  m'a  fait  savoir  que 
son  avis  du  23  mai  n'a  pas  amene  un  nombre  suffisant  d'ouvriers  ex- 
perimentes  a  reprendre  I'ouvrage  a  I'Arsenal. 

Vu  que,  comme  toute  personne  qui  n'est  pas  de  parti  pris  a  dii 
s'en  rendre  compte  par  I'avis  du  25  mai,  I'administration  allemande 
n'a  nullement  I'intention  d'obliger  les  ouvriers  a  travailler  pour 
I'armee  allemande  et  que  les  travaux  dont  il  s'agit  repondent  uni- 
quement  aux  interets  de  la  population  beige,  je  suis  oblige  de  punir 
la  ville  de  Malines  et  ses  environs  en  y  arretant  tout  trafic  econo- 
mique  tant  qu'un  nombre  suffisant  d'ouvriers  de  I'Arsenal  n'aura  pas 
repris  le  travail. 

J'ordonne  done  que: 

Si  le  mercredi  2  juin,  a  10  heures  du  matin  (heure  allemande) 
500  anciens  ouvriers  de  I'Arsenal  pouvant  et  desirant  travailler 
(ceux  qui  desirent  travailler  peuvent  se  faire  inscrire  a  I'entree  de 
I'Arsenal  tous  les  jours  de  8  a  12  heures  et  de  2  h.  30  a  6  heures — 

635 


BELGIUM 

And  so  the  gates  were  closed  and  the  city  with  its 
sixty  thousand  inhabitants  shut  off  from  the  rest  of  Bel- 
gium. The  Comite  National  even  was  forbidden  to 
send  in  any  clothing  though  it  was  still  permitted  to 
send  in  food. 

There  were  protests  on  the  part  of  the  Cardinal  and 

heure  allemande),  ne  se  presentent  pas  a  I'ouvrage,  les  restrictions 
suivantes  au  trafic  entreront  en  vigueur  le  S  juin,  a  partir  de  6 
heures  du  matin: 

(a)  Les  autorites  des  chemins  de  fer  empecheront  tout  trafic  de 
personnes  et  de  voyageurs  partant  des  gares  situees  sur  les  par- 
cours  suivants,  ou  y  aboutissant: 

Malines-Weerde ; 

Malines-Boortmeerbeek ; 

Malines-Wavre-Sainte-Catherine ; 

Malines-Capelle-au-Bois, 
y-compris  les  gares-terminus. 

II  sera  defendu  a  tout  civil,  sous  peine  d'etre  puni,  de  penetrer 
dans  les  gares  en  question. 

(b)  Toute  circulation  de  vehicules  (transport  de  personnes  et  de 
fardeaux)  de  velos,  d'autos,  de  vicinaux  et  de  bateaux,  meme  en 
transit  (a  I'exception  du  transit  des  bateaux)  est  interdite  dans  la 
region  comprise  entre  le  pont  de  la  chaussee  de  Duffel,  la  Nethe  et  le 
Rupel  en  aval  jusqu'au  confluent  du  canal  de  Bruxelles,  la  rive  est  du 
canal  vers  le  sud  jusqu'a  Pont  Brule,  puis  les  chemins  d'Eppeghem, 
Elewyt,  Wippendries,  Berghsheide,  Campelaar,  Boort-Meerbeek, 
Rymenam,  Wurgnes,  Peulis,  Hoogstraat,  Wavre-Notre-Dame,  Buck- 
heuvet,  Berkhoef,  jusqu'au  pont  de  la  chaussee  de  Duffel. 

Les  rails  de  vicinaux  seront  enleves  aux  limites  de  la  region 
delimitee  ci-dessus. 

(c)  II  ne  sera  fait  d'exception  a  I'alinea  (b)  que  pour  les  trans- 
ports du  Comite  National  destines  a  1' alimentation  du  district  in- 
terdit. 

(d)  Le  bureau  des  passeports  sera  ferme. 

Si  la  vie  economique  de  Malines  et  des  environs,  que  je  me  suis 
efforce  specialement  de  favoriser,  souffrait  gravement  des  mesures 

636 


THE  STRIKE  AT  MALINES 

the  Burgomaster,  but  the  Germans  were  deaf  and  per- 
sistent in  their  determination  to  punish  the  whole  com- 

susmentionnees,  la  faute  et  la  responsabilite  en  seraient  au  manque 
de  prevoyance  des  ouvriers  de  I'Arsenal  se  laissant  iufluencer  par 
des  meneurs. 

Translation 
Malines  Arsenal 

Notice   of  the  Governor-General  in   Belgium,  under  date  of  the 
30th  of  May,  1915. 

The  officer  in  command  of  Malines  has  brought  to  my  knowledge 
the  fact  that  his  order  of  the  25th  of  May  has  not  brought  out  a 
sufficient  number  of  experienced  workmen  to  resume  the  work  at  the 
arsenal. 

Therefore,  as  every  one  who  is  not  prejudiced  could  have  rec- 
ognized from  the  edict  of  the  25th  of  May  that  the  German  adminis- 
tration had  not  the  slightest  intention  of  forcing  the  labourers  to 
work  for  the  German  army,  and  that  the  work  in  question  was 
solely  in  the  interest  of  the  Belgian  population,  I  am  obliged  to 
punish  the  city  of  Malines  and  its  environs  by  arresting  all  economic 
traffic  so  long  as  a  sufficient  number  of  workmen  in  the  Arsenal 
shall  not  have  resumed  their  labours. 

I  therefore  order  that: 

If,  on  Wednesday,  the  2  June,  at  10  o'clock  in  the  morning 
(German  time),  500  former  workmen  of  the  arsenal,  being  able  and 
willing  to  work — those  who  desire  to  work  can  sign  up  at  the  en- 
trance to  the  Arsenal  every  day  from  8  to  12  and  from  2:30  to  6, 
(German  time) — do  not  present  themselves  for  work,  the  following 
restrictions  on  traffic  will  come  into  force,  on  the  3  June,  begin- 
ning at  6  o'clock  in  the  morning: 

(a)  The  railway  authorities  will  stop  all  traffic  of  persons  and 
travellers  leaving  from  the  stations  on  the  following  lines,  and  those 
connecting  with  them: 

Malines-Weerde ; 
Malines-Boortmeerbeek ; 
Malines-Wavre-Sainte-Catherine 
Malines-Capelle-au-Bois, 

637 


BELGIUM 

munity.  The  workmen  stood  firm,  and  the  citizens  of 
Malines  made  it  a  point  of  honour  to  stand  with  them. 
There  were  no  disorders,  simply  a  firm,  silent,  dignified, 
patriotic  resistance.  The  situation  lasted  two  weeks. 
Then  the  Germans  themselves  began  to  suffer ,they  could 
not  carry  on  their  affairs;  they  brought  in  German 
workmen,  announced  that  the  work  was  resumed,  and 
threw  open  the  gates  of  the  city. 

And  thus  ended  one  of  the  most  singular  strikes  ever 
undertaken.  Not  a  single  Belgian  had  worked  for  the 
Germans,  and  a  German  official  at  the  Politische  Ab- 

including  their  terminals. 

It  will  be  forbidden  to  every  civilian,  on  pain  of  punishment,  to 
enter  the  stations  in  question. 

(b)  All  circulation  of  vehicles  (carrying  persons  or  goods),  of 
bicycles,  automobiles,  interurban  tramways,  and  boats,  even  in  tran- 
sit (with  the  exception  of  the  transit  of  boats)  is  forbidden  in  the 
region  comprised  between  the  bridge  on  the  Duffel  road,  the  Nethe 
and  the  Rupel  down  to  its  confluence  with  the  Brussels  canal,  the 
east  bank  of  the  canal  toward  the  south  up  to  the  bridge  Brule,  then 
along  these  Roads,  Eppeghem,  Elewyt,  Wippendries,  Berghsheide, 
Campelaar,  Boort-Meerbeek,  Rymenam,  Wurgnes,  Peulis,  Hoog- 
straat,  Wavre-Notre-Dame,  Buckheuvet,  Berkhoef,  up  to  the  bridge 
on  the  Duffel  road. 

The  rails  of  the  interurban  tramways  will  be  taken  up  as  far 
as  the  limits  of  the  region  herein  marked  out. 

(c)  There  will  be  an  exception  made  in  section  (b)  in  favour  of 
the  transports  of  the  Comite  National  destined  to  the  feeding  of  the 
restricted  district. 

(d)  The  passport  office  will  be  closed. 

If  the  economic  life  of  Malines  and  its  environs,  which  I  have  , 
endeavoured   especially   to   favour,   must   suffer   gravely   from  the 
above-mentioned  measures,  the  fault  and  the  responsibility  will  be 
due  to  the  lack  of  foresight  on  the  part  of  the  workers  in  the  ar- 
senal in  allowing  themselves  to  be  influenced  by  their  ringleaders. 

638 


THE  STRIKE  AT  MALINES 

teilung  paid  a  reluctant  tribute  to  their  character  when 
he  said  bitterly: 

"The  Belgians  are  indomitable;  the  Cardinal  has 
shown  us  that." 

The  Cardinal,  indeed,  about  the  same  time  had  been 
having  another  difficulty  with  the  oppressors  of  his 
country.  He  had  written  a  note  to  the  Kreischef  at 
Malines  informing  him  politely  of  a  religious  proces- 
sion he  proposed  to  have — an  old  traditional  ceremony 
held  every  year,  and  the  Kreischef  had  forbidden  it  be- 
cause, as  he  said,  the  Cardinal  had  not  expressly  asked 
permission ;  the  Kreischef  had  insisted  that  the  Cardinal 
use  the  word  "permission."  The  Germans  were  told  by 
a  certain  diplomat  that  for  a  distinguished  man  like  the 
Cardinal  to  write  and  inform  the  Kreischef  of  his  inten- 
tions was  equivalent  to  a  polite  request  for  permission. 
But  no,  that  would  not  suffice ;  German  authority,  Ger- 
man supremacy,  must  be  recognized  to  the  very  utter- 
most.^ 

'  The  same  measures  were  attempted  at  Ghent,  which  was  in  the 
Etappengebiet  and  not  in  the  jurisdiction  of  the  German  General. 
There  the  following  order  was  issued: 

LES  AVIS  OFFICIELS  ALLEMANDS 
L'Administration  communale  de  Gand  nous  transmet  I'avis  sui- 
vant: 

Avis 

Par  Ordre  de  Son  Excellence  M.  I'lnspecteur  de  I'Etape,  je 
porte  a  la  connaissance  des  communes  ce  qui  suit: 

L'attitude  de  quelques  fabriques  qui^  sous  pretexte  de  patriot- 
isme  et  en  s'appuyant  sur  la  Convention  de  La  Haye,  ont  refuse 
de  travailler  pour  I'armee  allemande,  prouve  que,  parmi  la  popu- 
lation, il  y  a  des  tendances  ayant  pour  but  du  susciter  des  diffi- 
cultes  a  I'administration  de  I'armee  allemande. 

639 


BELGIUM 

A  ce  propos  je  fais  savoir  que  je  reprimerai  par  tous  les  moyens 
a  ma  disposition  de  pareilles  menees  qui  ne  peuvent  que  troubler  le 
bon  accord  existant  jusqu'ici  entre  rAdministration  de  Tarmee  alle- 
mande  et  la  population. 

Je  rends  responsables  en  premier  lieu  les  autorites  communales 
de  I'extension  de  pareilles  tendances,  et  j  e  fais  remarquer  que  la  pop- 
ulation elle-meme  sera  cause  que  les  libertees  accordees  j  usqu'ici  de  la 
fa9on  la  plus  large  lui  seront  enlevees  et  remplacees  par  des  mesures 
restrictives  rendues  necessaire  par  sa  propre  f ante. 

Lieutenant-General, 
Graf  von  Westarp, 
Le  Commandant  de  I'Etape. 
Gand,  le  10  juin,  1915. 

Translation 

The  Municipal  administration  at  Ghent  transmits  to  us  the  fol- 
lowing notice : 

Notice 

By  order  of  His  Excellency  the  Inspector  of  the  District  I  bring 
to  the  attention  of  the  communes  the  following: 

The  attitude  of  certain  manufactories  which,  under  the  pretext 
of  patriotism  and  depending  upon  the  Hague  Convention,  have  re- 
fused to  work  for  the  German  army,  proves  that  among  the  popu- 
lation there  are  tendencies  to  create  difficulties  in  the  administration 
of  the  German  army. 

In  this  connexion  I  announce  that  I  shall  repress  by  every  means 
in  my  power  such  efforts,  which  can  only  trouble  the  good  spirit 
existing  imtil  now  between  the  Administration  of  the  German  army 
and  the  population. 

I  hold  responsible,  in  the  first  place,  the  communal  authorities 
for  the  dissemination  of  these  tendencies,  and  T  may  add  that  the 
population  itself  wiU  be  the  cause  if  the  liberties  up  to  now  granted 
freely  are  taken  away  from  it  and  replaced  by  restrictive  meas- 
ures rendered  necessary  by  its  own  fault. 

Lieutenant-General, 
Graf  von  Westarp, 

Ghent,  Jmie  10,  1915.  Commandant,  of  the  Etape. 

640 


LXXVIII 

LA  LIBRE  BELGIQtJE 

The  centenary  of  the  Battle  of  Waterloo  falling  in 
June  of  that  year,  was  not  observed  by  the  great  cele- 
bration that  had  been  planned  in  Belgium.  The  poetic 
imagination  might  figure  to  itself  Napoleon  and  Well- 
ington sitting  in  the  shades  of  twilight  before  the  ugly 
mound,  exchanging  reflections  on  the  progress  of  the 
species  and  the  improvements  mankind  has  wrought 
since  their  day,  when  submarines  and  asphyxiating-gas 
bombs  had  not  yet  been  invented,  and  women  and  chil- 
dren and  helpless  non-combatants  had  not  become  chcdr 
a  canon  as  well  as  men.  Perhaps  old  Bliicher  would 
have  been  there  too,  smoking  his  long  pipe,  though  per- 
haps he  would  have  felt  his  place  rather  to  be  in  Brus- 
sels with  von  Bissing,  just  then  haranguing  a  regiment 
of  Imperial  Guards  drawn  up  in  the  sun  before  the  pal- 
ace in  their  opera  houffe  costumes  of  white  and  red,  in 
celebration  of  the  day  and  the  event. 

At  any  moment,  indeed,  the  reflective  mind  could  find 
in  Brussels  scenes  and  subjects  to  moralize.  Strolling 
out  of  a  morning  there  were  always  to  be  observed, 
for  instance,  the  strings  of  horses  going  down  the  Rue 
Belliard,  led  by  a  cavalry  under-officer  who  rode  ar- 
rogantly along.  They  went  by  every  day  in  an  end- 
less procession,  every  one  of  the  patient  beasts  the 
symbol  of  a  little  tragedy  in  some  life  of  toil,  of  sad- 
ness in  the  humble  peasant  home  from  which  it  had 
been  taken.     Every  day  at  noon  there  was  a  guard 

641 


BELGIUM 

mount  before  the  Houses  of  Parliament;  a  battalion 
marched  from  the  Palais  de  Justice,  which  had  been 
turned  into  a  barracks,  down  the  Rue  Royale  to  the 
Place  de  la  Nation;  they  were  led  by  a  band  that  brayed 
"Die  Wacht  am  Rhein,"  and  other  German  patriotic 
tunes.  The  Belgians  in  the  street  affected  generally  not 
to  see  them;  even  the  familiar  spectacle  of  small  boys 
trotting  along  beside  the  bandsmen  was  lacking.  Fre- 
quently, too,  there  was  a  morning  parade  of  troops  in  the 
Avenue  Louise  and  along  the  boulevard ;  the  troops  had 
music  at  their  head  when  they  did  not  have  a  mitraille- 
use. Standing  on  the  sidewalk  one  morning  was  a  young 
man  who,  looking  at  the  soldiers,  laughed ;  instantly  two 
soldiers  sprang  out  of  the  column  and  seized  him.  The 
poor  lad  wildly  protested  in  terror. 

^'Je  71  ai  rien  fait!   Je  nai  rien  fait!''  he  cried. 

One  of  the  soldiers  significantly  touched  his  gun,  and 
they  dragged  him  off"  behind  the  soldiers. 

There  were  always  such  morally  sickening  scenes  to 
be  witnessed,  and  always  the  latest  affiche  giving  the 
names  of  the  victims  of  the  firing  squad:  ''Ont  ete 
fusilles  aujourd'hui  en  vertu  de  Varret  du  Conseil  de 

Guerre "    And  then  the  tragic  list,  half  a  dozen  or 

more,  of  those  martyrs  to  liberty  whose  only  monument 
was  the  red  affiche  that  recorded  their  sacrifice — ^the 
affiche  so  soon  to  be  saturated  by  the  rains  and 
torn  and  tattered  by  the  winds,  until  it  was  cov- 
ered over  with  another  just  like  it,  save  that  the  names 
were  of  other  martyrs  who  had  helped  boys  across  the 
frontier,  or  "counted  trains,"  or  in  some  other  way 
resisted  or  off'ended  the  Germans.  There  were  the 
names  of  women  as  well  as  of  men,  and  no  distinctions 
were  made  in  applying  the  last  penalty.    And  they  had 

642 


LA  LIBRE  BELGIQUE 

their  effect  in  the  hatred  which  they  intensified  in  every 
heart;  they  must  have  had  their  effect  on  unborn  chil- 
dren as  well.  I  shall  never  forget  the  expression  of  the 
face,  nor  the  tone  of  the  voice,  nor  even  the  peculiar 
contour  of  the  lips,  of  one  of  the  scholars  of  Belgium, 
an  eminent  critic  in  letters  and  in  art,  who,  one  day,  at 
some  such  sight,  burst  forth : 

'^Que  Dieu  me  prete  encore  la  vie  pour  savourer  la 
revanche^ 

God,  whose  ways  are  past  finding  out,  did  not  lend 
him  the  life  to  relish  the  revenge  he  so  confidently  antici- 
pated, for  he  died  soon  after,  as  died  so  many  others 
whose  hearts  could  not  endure  the  strain  daily  put  upon 
them,  and  were  overwhelmed  at  last  by  the  preposterous 
injustice  that  poisoned  all  the  air.  .  .  . 

The  hatred  grew  as  the  terror  grew,  and  the  resistance 
with  both.  It  was  a  resistance  that  was  kept  up  in  count- 
less ways,  difficult  to  describe;  there  was  something 
occult  and  mysterious  about  it;  it  was  all  about  in  the 
very  air.  There  was  the  blood  of  the  martyrs,  and 
the  courageous  denunciations  and  appeals  of  patriots 
like  the  Cardinal  and  Maitre  Theodor.  But  the  only 
organ  it  had  was  that  remarkable  publication,  JLa  Libre 
Belgiquej  a  little  sheet  that  people  found  in  their  letter- 
boxes from  time  to  time,  they  knew  not  how  it  got 
there;  von  Bissing  himself  did  not  know  how  it  got  to 
him,  but  there  it  was  punctually,  without  missing  a  num- 
ber, so  it  was  said,  on  his  table  at  each  publication.  He 
tried  by  all  the  means  at  his  command  to  find  out,  but 
he  never  succeeded.  It  was  a  small  sheet  of  four  pages, 
with  three  or  four  columns  of  observations  the  Gov- 
ernor-General could  not  have  liked  to  read.  No  one 
knew  who  edited  or  published  it,  no  one  knew  where 

643 


BELGIUM 

or  by  whom  it  was  printed.  It  was,  as  its  announce- 
ment said,  "A  Bulletin  of  Patriotic  Propaganda,  ir- 
regularly regular,"  in  appearance;  the  price  of  a  num- 
ber was  "elastic,  from  zero  to  infinity,"  and  those  who 
resold  it  were  "requested  not  to  go  beyond  this  limit." 
As  to  its  editorial  rooms  it  was  stated  that  as  it  had  been 
unable  to  find  a  "peaceful  location"  it  was  "installed  in 
an  automobile  cellar."  And  as  to  advertisements, 
"Business  being  dead  under  the  German  domination,  we 
have  suppressed  the  advertising  page  and  we  advise  our 
clients  to  save  their  money  for  better  times."  Its  tele- 
graph address  was  "Kommandantur,  Brussels." 

All  that  I  knew,  or  ever  learned  of  it,  was  that  it  mys- 
teriously appeared  in  the  letter-box  at  the  Legation. 
Then  for  a  long  time  it  would  come  no  more;  after 
a  while  the  clandestine  distribution  would  be  renewed. 
While  prudence  advised  every  one  to  show  no  familiarity 
with  it,  people  used  to  discuss  its  contents  and  applaud 
the  temerity  of  its  unknown  editor,  who  "had  a  daunt- 
less spirit — and  a  press." 

The  German  police  tried  every  device  known  to 
them;  they  made  raids  and  perquisitions;  they  offered 
rewards ;  but  they  never  discovered  the  editors  and  pub- 
lishers and  La  Libre  Belgique  continued  to  appear  with 
its  announced  irregular  regularity  on  von  Bissing's 
table.  Probably  nothing  in  all  that  the  Belgians  did  ir- 
ritated the  Germans  more,  and  they  were  incapable  of 
seeing  the  humour  of  it,  of  course,  or  of  understanding 
that  their  desperate  and  intense  resentment  only  made 
the  sheet  the  more  powerful,  determined,  and  influential. 
Now  and  then  they  did  succeed  in  arresting  some  luck- 
less person  who  was  distributing  it,  or  who  had  a  copy  of 
it,  but  even  those  who  had  it  could  not  tell  whence  it 

644 


LA  LIBRE  BELGIQUE 

came.  Women  spies,  dressed  as  nuns,  were  sent  about 
soliciting  subscriptions;  they  went  to  every  door  be- 
hind which  they  suspected  the  presence  of  some  one 
knowing  about  the  paper,  and  asked  for  odd  numbers 
to  complete  their  files,  but  all  to  no  avail ;  neither  editor 
nor  printer  was  ever  discovered. 

La  Libre  Belgique  was  not  the  only  patriotic  paper 
clandestinely  published  in  Belgium.  There  was  De 
Vlaamsche  Leeuw — The  Flemish  Lion — published  in 
the  Flemish  language,  and  circulated  in  the  two  Flan- 
ders. It  was  in  the  same  note  as  La  Libre  Belgique, 
and  bore  at  the  head  of  its  columns  the  statement:  "In 
these  times  of  sorrow  and  trial  we  Flemish  place  our- 
selves without  reservation  beside  our  brethren,  the  Wal- 
loons, around  the  Belgian  tricolour,  and  we  share  the 
same  misery  and  the  same  dangers.  We  are  convinced 
that  on  the  day  when  the  final  victory  is  won  we  shall 
also  participate  in  the  same  rights."  It  ai^ounced  that 
its  office  was  in  Brussels  across  the  street  from  the  of- 
fice of  La  Libre  Belgique.  There  were  other  publica- 
tions, too,  giving  extracts  or  resumes  of  the  news ;  such 
as  the  Weekly  French  Press,  but  these  did  not  circulate 
at  Brussels — or  at  least  never  got  in  our  letter-box. 


LXXIX 

THE    BELGIAN    CROP 

In  the  midst  of  the  excitement  and  the  trying  sus- 
pense over  the  Lusitania  incident  we  took  up,  and  all 
summer  long  discussed,  one  of  the  most  difficult  problems 
that  ever  threatened  the  relief  work.  We  had  had  al- 
ready an  intimation  of  it  in  the  letter  from  Mr.  Hoover 
saying  that  the  British  Government  would  refuse  to 
allow  the  ravitaillement  to  continue  after  the  fifteenth 
of  August  unless  the  Germans  gave  guarantees  not  to 
requisition  the  new  crop  in  Belgium.  Then  one  evening, 
just  as  Hermancito  was  translating  the  President's  note 
out  of  a  German  newspaper  for  us,  and  we  were  hearing 
of  Mr.  Bryan's  resignation,  Mr.  Hoover  arrived  from 
London,  and  we  were  face  to  face  with  the  problem. 
It  was  a  question  of  exquisite  delicacy  and  it  was  com- 
plicated by  another  quite  as  difficult,  that  of  the  inten- 
tion, or  if  not  the  intention,  at  least  the  desire,  of  the 
Germans  to  interfere  in  the  work  of  the  Comite  Na- 
tional. At  the  time  they  had  destroyed  the  Belgian  Red 
Cross  it  was  predicted  that  they  would  destroy  the 
Comite  National,  or  take  over  the  charitable  work  it  was 
doing,  which  would  have  destroyed  it.  There  were,  as 
I  have  said,  suspicions  in  the  German  mind  of  the  Com- 
mittee's activities,  and  fear  of  their  results.  I  sug- 
gested that  the  questions  be  separated  and  discussed 
one  at  a  time,  and  we  were  fortunate  in  that  the  first 
of  them  to  be  taken  up  concerned  the  disposition  to 
be  made  of  the  Belgian  crop.  The  Germans,  of  course, 
would  not  give  way  before  threats  or  ultimata;  once 

646 


THE  BELGIAN  CROP 

their  pride  was  engaged  the  situation  would  have  been 
irremediably  compromised,  and  the  work  at  an  end. 
Their  original  guarantees  had  bound  them  not  to  touch 
any  imported  food,  and  these  guarantees  had  been  re- 
spected by  them,  but  they  had  requisitioned  for  their 
army  such  products  as  were  still  grown  on  Belgian  soil, 
and  this  was  not  in  contravention  of  any  expressed  en- 
gagement. But,  as  is  always  the  case  in  any  enterprise 
conducted  by  human  beings,  there  were  those  difficulties 
and  complications  that  are  inherent  in  the  mystery  of 
personality;  there  were  those  various  susceptibilities,  an- 
tipathies, and  inexplicable  antagonisms  that  exist  where- 
ever  men  of  different  races  are  brought  together,  and 
usually  whenever  human  beings  are  brought  together 
at  all,  so  that  in  the  long  discussions  that  ensued,  in 
making  the  delicate  approaches  to  the  Germans  in  the 
hope  of  winning  their  assurances  as  to  the  crops  then 
ripening  in  the  little  fields  that  lay  like  rich  carpets 
over  Belgium,  it  was  necessary  to  watch  the  expressions 
on  a  dozen  countenances,  to  read  the  signals  in  a  dozen 
eyes,  to  know  what  significance  to  attach  to  frowns,  or 
lifted  eyebrows,  or  sudden  hardening  of  the  lips.  The 
atmosphere  created  by  that  torpedoing  off  the  coast  of 
Ireland  was  growing  even  more  tense,  and  surcharge 
with  grave  potentialities ;  the  Americans  who  had  worke^ 
so  hard,  so  faithfully,  without  recompense,  purely 
humanity,  were  smarting  under  the  treatment  the  Gl^r 
mans  had  accorded  them — suspicion,  contempt,  hared, 
insult  even;  and  there  were  moments  when  theyyWere 
tempted  to  throw  over  the  task.  But  there  in  the^had- 
•  owy  background  of  the  scene  were  always  those  lyipless 
hungry  Belgians  who  must  be  fed,  and  there  yseemed 
no  one  else  to  assume  the  responsibility. 

647 


BELGIUM 

Thus  one  morning  Villalobar  and  I  went  to  see  von 
der  Lancken.  He  received  us  that  day  in  the  little 
room  upstairs,  where,  overlooking  the  pleasant  park,  he 
worked  such  long  hours  every  day.  No  one  ever  worked 
as  those  Germans  worked ;  they  were  up  and  at  it  early 
in  the  morning  and  toiled  far  into  the  night,  with  no 
week-ends,  no  holidays,  not  even  Sundays.  We  pre- 
sented the  notes  that  we  had  prepared,  identical  in  terms, 
concerning  the  disposition  to  be  made  of  foodstuffs  at 
the  time  the  new  crops  were  to  be  gathered.  Villalobar 
had  asked  me  to  do  the  talking  that  morning,  and  after 
we  had  conversed  a  while  about  certain  details  I  found 
a  way  of  suggesting  that  we  discuss  principles  and  to  in- 
timate that  the  notes,  in  effect,  raised  the  whole  subject, 
which  was,  literally : 

"What  did  the  Germans  propose  to  do  with  the  new 
crop?" 

And  von  der  Lancken  harked  back  to  what  I  had 
once  said  about  the  difficulty  of  feeding  a  lamb  in  a  cage 
with  a  lion  and  a  tiger,  and  asked : 

"Qui  est  le  tigre  et  qui  est  le  Uon  id,  nous  ou  les 
Anglais?'* 

"Ca  depend,'*  I  replied. 

He  laughed,  and  a  laugh  makes  things  simpler;  I 
^aid  that  it  could  all  be  put  very  simply. 

"What  proportion  of  the  food  stock  required  by  the 
BtSgians  for  a  year  will  the  new  crop  provide?" 
Roughly  speaking,  about  a  fifth,"  he  said, 
"^'ery  well,"  I  said,  "I  make  you  a  proposal.  The 
new  tj'op  is  one-fifth  of  the  supply  for  the  coming  year. 
You  Can  do  one  of  two  things :  you  can  leave  that  one- 
fifth  to  the  Belgians  and  the  Commission  for  Relief  will 
provide  the  other  four-fifths,  and  you  will  get  in  addi- 

648 


THE  BELGIAN  CROP 

tion,  and  very  cheaply,  the  credit  for  having  been  just 
and  generous,  or,  you  can  take  that  one-fifth  and  then 
from  Germany  yourselves  import  the  four-fifths  neces- 
sary to  make  up  the  deficit." 

He  thought  a  minute  and  said  that  while  he  could  not 
speak  for  the  Governor-General  he  thought  it  would  be 
better  to  accept  my  first  proposal.  I  told  him  that  I 
thought  so  too,  and  the  Marquis  added  an  approval. 
But  von  der  Lancken  returned  with  an  additional 
thought: 

"If  we  give  you  the  one-fifth,"  he  asked,  "what  as- 
surance have  we  that  when  the  Belgians  have  eaten  that 
up  the  English  will  continue  to  allow  the  four-fifths  to 
come  in?" 

We  came  thus  tentatively  to  terms  on  the  principle, 
but  the  details,  of  course,  were  not  so  simple.    Men  talk 
much  and  importantly  about  principles  but  they  agree 
upon  them  much  more  readily  than  they  do  upon  de- 
tails because,  perhaps,  they  hold  theoretical  principles 
so  much  more  lightly  than  they  hold  practical  details.    I 
shall  not  recount  the  long  and  difficult  negotiations  that 
occupied  us  day  and  night  for  the  better  part  of  that 
summer,  but  perhaps  I  can  convey  some  suggestion 
what  they  meant,  if  I  recall  what  seemed  a  remarkabl 
experience,  unique  in  the  world  in  that  pass  to  whi 
man  had  succeeded,  after  twenty  centuries,  in  bringj^g 
it.    I  heard  one  morning  as  I  awoke  a  strange  and 
tiful  sound,  latterly  unknown  in  our  life,  and  coj 
with  what  rich  suggestion  of  memories  out  of  the  irorld 
we  had  lost — the  musical  ring  of  a  mason's  trowel  on  a 
brick!    There  had  been  no  building,  no  industn^  and 
this  note  of  remote  normal  life  was  sweet  to  hear.    And 
what  longing  it  created !    I  could  imagine  mys^f  for  an 

649 


BELGIUM 

instant  in  a  certain  Ohio  town  on  a  summer  morning, 
with  peace  around,  and  men  working  serenely.  Would 
we  ever  know  peace  again,  ever  win  our  way  back  to  a 
life  in  which  the  only  price  of  bread  should  be  honest 
work,  and  not  ever  tortuous,  endless,  distasteful,  nerve- 
racking  negotiations,  discussions,  and  arrangements? 

In  principle,  then,  we  were  agreed;  and  von  der 
Lancken,  sitting  there  at  the  little  marble-topped  table 
in  the  Louis  XVI  salon  of  the  old  Ministry  of  Industry, 
furnished  for  the  polite  uses  of  society,  one  day  offi- 
cially informed  us  that  the  Governor-General  had 
agreed  that  the  new  crop  should  go  to  the  Belgians;  that 
much  was  gained.  But — one  used  to  official  discussions 
learns  before  drawing  the  long  and  happy  sigh  of  re- 
lief, to  await  the  adversative  conjunction  that  connotes 
new  difficulties — but  the  Governor-General  wished  to 
put  into  effect  his  pet  project  of  organizing  the  distri- 
bution of  the  crop  on  the  lines  already  prevailing  in 
Germany. 

General  von  Bissing  was  a  man  of  force,  and  no  doubt 
had  many  virtues,  but  he  had  lived  in  Barmen,  Prussia, 
and  he  had  this  prejudice:  he  thought  that  everything 
should  be  done  in  the  way  that  it  is  done  in  Barmen, 
Prussia.     It  is  not,  perhaps,  a  rare  prejudice;  every 
nan  has  his  Barmen,  Prussia,  and  there  were  many 
-^armens  represented  around  that  table,  Belgian  Bar- 
ons, and  Dutch  Barmens,  and  Spanish  Barmens,  and 
CalPornia  Barmens,  and  Ohio  Barmens,  all  widely  sep- 
aratfcl  in  space  and  time.  Von  Bissing  oft-times  thought, 
no  dcibt,  that  the  Belgians  were  unreasonable  and  at 
fault  i\  not  appreciating  the  advantages  of  Barmen  and 
of  doiig  things  in  the  Barmen  way.     The  notion  of 
mtroduting  the  Barmen  system  of  distributing  crops 

650 


THE  BELGIAN  CROP 

was  an  old  and  darling  project  of  his.  We,  of  course, 
could  object  on  numerous  grounds,  and  von  der 
Lancken  said  it  would  be  difficult  to  get  the  General  to 
change  his  mind ;  that  was  a  thing  he  seldom  did,  as  we 
well  knew,  alas!  And  so  for  a  long  time  we  discussed 
the  difficulty  of  convincing  England,  where  there  were 
yet  other  Barmens,  and,  like  a  convention  in  deadlock, 
met  and  adjourned,  and  met  and  adjourned. 

And  they  went  on  for  a  month,  those  meetings  in  an 
atmosphere  that  had  beco/ne  so  familiar  to  me,  so  in- 
separable from  the  discussions  of  men !  I  had  been  liv- 
ing in  that  atmosphere  for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  and  I 
may  as  well  own  that  I  detested  it ;  a  room  full  of  men 
all  smoking,  and  all  talking  at  once,  all  with  more  or  less 
vague  and  nebulous  ideas  of  what  ought  to  be  done  or 
what  they  wished  to  do,  and  finally,  when  it  came  to 
writing  it  down,  each  anxious  to  have  it  set  down  in 
his  own  words ;  the  infinite  difficulty  of  reaching  a  com- 
mon understanding,  of  discovering  the  agent  that  will 
cause  the  muddy  element  of  discussion  to  precipitate. 
It  is  bad  enough  when  it  is  done  in  one  language,  but 
here  it  was  necessary  that  it  be  done  in  three,  sometimes 
in  four.  One  of  those  sessions  comes  back  to  me.  It  is  a 
hot,  sultry  summer  day;  one  of  the  Herr  Professors,  of 
the  type  that  removes  its  glasses  when  it  wishes  to  read, 
is  bent  over  the  table,  very  red  in  the  face,  with  perspir- 
ing brow,  writing;  impossible  to  get  him  to  see  a  thing 
or  to  change  a  single  line.  Another,  his  face  scarred 
like  a  Kaffir  warrior's,  is  reading  a  copy  of  The  Man- 
chester Gruardian — ^with  what  sensations,  I  wonder! 
There  is  a  sputtering  discussion,  every  one  talking  at 
once,  endless  palaver,  incredibly  barren  and  stupid. 
I  go  over  to  the  window  and  look  out  into  the  Park, 

651 


BELGIUM 

waiting  for  the  futile  discussion  to  wear  itself  out. 

C comes  to  me  and  tells  me  that  F is  doing  too 

much  of  the  talking,  spoiling  everything  in  fact.    Then 

F comes  over  and  confides  to  me  that  C really 

talks  too  much  and  will  inevitably  ruii\  the  whole  busi- 
ness. .  .  .  When  it  is  over  for  that  day  I  go  away  with 
a  nervous  headache,  and  drive  off  to  the  fields  where  the 
poppies  and  the  bluets  are  blooming  in  the  ripening  yel- 
low corn,  the  very  crops  whose  distribution  we  were 
squabbling  over.  > 

However,  we  had  the  assurance  that  the  whole  Bel- 
gian crop  would  be  reserved  for  the  Belgian  civilian  pop- 
ulation, and  it  was  agreed  that  the  C.  N.  and  the  C.  R.  B. 
should  continue  to  function  as  before,  and  that  was  the 
principal  thing.  It  was  the  desire  of  the  C.  N.  and  the 
C.  R.  B.  that  the  principle  of  distribution  by  regions  be 
adopted,  first,  because  the  two  organizations  were  estab- 
lished on  that  principle;  and  second,  because  such  a 
method  facilitated  the  work  and  was  more  economical. 
Mr.  Hoover  demonstrated  in  an  able  memorandum,  that 
the  production  of  bread  stuffs  was  of  irregular  propor- 
tions in  various  districts ;  the  province  of  Limbourg  could 
produce  enough  to  supply  the  people  of  that  province 
during  the  entire  year,  while  the  agglomeration  of  Brus- 
sels obviously  produced  none  at  all.  If  the  wheat  in 
each  province  were  reserved  for  the  people  of  that  prov- 
ince, then  the  Commission  could  confine  its  shipments 
to  the  various  districts  as  required  by  the  exhaustion  of 
their  local  supplies.  Such  a  system  would  simplify  the 
work  of  distribution  as  it  would  diminish  the  number  of 
centres  into  which  it  would  be  necessary  to  transport 
imported  food ;  whereas,  if  the  harvest  were  distributed 
to  the  entire  population  for  immediate  consumption,  a 

652 


THE  BELGIAN  CROP 

large  amount  of  railway  stock  would  have  to  be  em- 
ployed to  move  it  about  and  much  money  spent  in  trans- 
portation. 

We  supposed  that  the  military  authorities  would 
prefer  not  to  be  troubled  with  this  constant  shifting  of 
goods.  But  no,  that  was  not  the  German  way:  a  Ger- 
man organization  must  be  created  and  everything 
squeezed  into  it,  everything  poured  into  the  German 
mould,  or  hammered  on  their  anvil.  It  seemed  to  be  a 
principle  with  them  not  to  turn  the  crop  of  the  Belgians 
over  to  the  Belgian  or  even  to  the  American  organiza- 
tion, which  would  have  seemed  to  be  the  simple  and 
logical  method;  while  agreeing  that  the  crop  should  go 
to  the  Belgians  and  be  eaten  by  them,  the  Germans  were 
determined  to  keep  it  in  their  own  hands  as  long  as 
possible,  and  to  dole  it  out  from  time  to  time.  Then  we 
suggested  that  it  be  distributed  by  the  communal  or 
regional  authorities,  and  when  this  idea  was  rejected  we 
suggested  that  the  wonderful  cooperative  institution  of 
Belgium,  known  as  the  Boerenhond,  be  utilized.  But 
no,  this  would  not  do  either :  there  must  be  a  Zentrale, 
and  for  weeks  the  form  of  the  Zentrale  was  discussed. 
They  would  elaborate  its  bewildering  and  complex  or- 
ganism day  after  day.  The  Herr  Doktor  who  had  the 
details  in  hand,  or  in  head,  might  have  been  a  plenipo- 
tentiary at  a  peace  conference  charged  with  fixing  the 
status  of  all  the  nations  and  regulating  the  affairs  of  the 
world  for  all  time;  it  must  be  that  way  and  no  other, 
because  that  was  organization,  and  it  was  doctrinal  that 
everything  must  be  organized.  We  discussed  it  learn- 
edly and  solemnly  for  days  on  end,  and  the  marvellous 
and  unprecedented  phenomenon  of  organization  was  at 
last  evolved.    Then  one  afternoon,  by  an  innocent  ques- 

653 


BELGIUM 

tion  of  one  of  us,  it  was  suddenly  discovered  that  none 
of  the  Herr  Doktors  or  Herr  Professors,  or  I  know 
not  what  gowned  and  hooded  experts,  had  ever  once 
thought  of  such  questions  as  insurance,  transportation, 
demurrage,  freight  charges,  and,  above  all,  the  fluctua- 
tion of  the  wheat  market  and  the  desirability  of  buying 
as  cheaply  as  possible.  None  of  these  things  had  en- 
tered into  their  consideration.  They  looked  up  in  amaze- 
ment and  put  on  their  glasses,  as  they  always  did  when 
they  did  not  wish  to  see  anything. 

Finally,  however,  we  reached  an  agreement  by  which 
the  Commission  was  to  continue  to  import  into  Belgium 
the  food  necessary  to  the  support  of  the  population,  and 
the  German  Administration  would  hold  the  native  crop, 
used  in  making  bread,  at  the  disposition  of  the  Belgian 
people,  the  details  of  the  distribution  to  be  decided  on 
later  by  the  Governor- General.^ 

*  The  agreement  was  as  follows : 

Le  Comite  National  et  la  Commission  for  Relief  in  Belgium, 
sous  le  patronage  de  Messieurs  les  Ministres  d'Espagne  et  des 
Etats-Unis  d'Amerique  et  du  Charge  des  Affaires  des  Pays  Bas, 
continueront  a  importer  en  Belgique,  jusqu'a  la  recolte  de  1916,  les 
denrees  necessaires  a  I'alimentation  de  la  population  civile  dans  le 
territoire  occupe,  place  sous  les  ordres  du  Gouverneur  General  en 
Belgique. 

Le  Gouverneur  General  en  Belgique  de  son  cote  tiendra  a  la 
disposition  de  la  population  civile  beige  du  territoire  place  sous 
ses  ordres  le  produit  de  la  recolte  de  ble  de  1915  servant  a  la  fabri- 
cation du  pain  (froment  et  seigle). 

Aussitot  que  Monsieur  le  Gouverneur  General  aura  pris  una 
decision  au  sujet  de  la  repartition  de  la  recolte,  que  celle-ci  soit 
reparte  dans  tout  le  pays,  ou  bien  qu'elle  le  soit  dans  les  regions 
productrices,  ou  bien  encore  suivant  tout  autre  systeme,  la  decision 
prise  sera  communiques  a  Messieurs  les  Ministres  d'Espagne  et 
des  Etats-Unis  d'Amerique  et  a  M.  le  Charge  des  Affaires  des  Pays 

654 


THE  BELGIAN  CROP 

Mr.  Hoover  could  then  return  to  London  with  the 
desired  assurances  as  to  the  disposition  of  the  new  crop ; 
they  came  just  in  time,  for  on  the  very  evening  when 
we  were  all  relieved  by  the  solution,  a  telegram  came 
from  our  Embassy  at  London  saying  that  the  English 
Government  was  about  to  make  some  announcement 
affecting  the  work  unless  we  could  assure  an  immediate 
solution.  As  to  the  method  of  distribution  of  the  in- 
digenous crop,  the  Germans  finally  organized  a  new 
Zentrale,  called  the  Zentrale  Ernte  Kommission,  com- 
posed of  five  Germans — one  representing  the  Politische 
Abteilung,  one  the  Zivilverwaltung,  one  the  Bank  Ab- 

Bas  pour  etre  transmise  au  Comite  National  et  a  la  Commission 
for  Relief  in  Belgium,  afin  que  ceux-ci  puissent  prendre  leurs 
mesures  en  consequence. 

Translation 

The  Comite  National  and  the  Commission  for  Relief  in  Belgium, 
under  the  patronage  of  the  Ministers  of  Spain  and  of  the  United 
States  of  America  and  of  the  Charge  des  Affaires  of  Holland,  will 
continue  to  import  into  Belgium,  until  the  harvest  of  1916,  the  pro- 
visions necessary  to  the  support  of  the  civil  population  in  the  occu- 
pied territory  under  the  orders  of  the  Governor-General  in  Belgium. 

The  Governor-General  in  Belgium,  on  his  side,  will  hold  at  the 
disposition  of  the  Belgian  civil  population  in  the  territory  under 
his  command  the  harvest  of  grain  of  1915  used  in  the  making  of 
bread  (wheat  and  rye). 

As  soon  as  the  Governor-General  shall  have  come  to  a  decision 
on  the  question  of  the  distribution  of  the  harvest,  whether  it  be 
distributed  throughout  the  entire  country  or  whether  it  be  dis- 
tributed in  the  regions  producing  it  or  whether,  according  to  some 
altogether  different  system,  the  decision  taken  will  be  communi- 
cated to  the  Ministers  of  Spain  and  of  the  United  States  of  America 
and  to  the  Charge  des  Affaires  of  Holland  to  be  transmitted  to 
the  Comite  National  and  the  Commission  for  Relief  in  Belgium, 
in  order  that  they  may  take  measures  in  accordance  therewith. 

Q55 


BELGIUM 

teilung,  and  two  others,  who  seemed  to  represent  the 
Empire  at  large.  But  as  a  proof  of  their  liberahty  and 
fairness  they  made  a  concession  and  allowed  two  more 
members,  with  full  powers  to  vote,  on  the  committee,  one 
representing  the  C.  N,  and  one  the  C.  R.  B.  The  ses- 
sions were  formal  and  every  proposal  made  by  the  Ger- 
mans was  carried  by  the  same  vote — five  to  two;  every 
proposal  made  by  the  Belgian  or  the  American  was  lost 
by  the  same  vote — two  to  five.  And,  in  addition  to  this, 
inasmuch  as  Mr.  Hoover's  direct  American  way  had  of- 
fended the  Germans,  a  new  organism  attached  to  the 
Politische  Abteilung  was  created,  the  Vermittlungs- 
stelle,  through  which  contact  was  established  thenceforth 
between  the  German  Administration  and  the  C.  R.  B. 


LXXX 

A  CRISIS 

We  had  no  sooner  disposed  of  the  question  of  the 
indigenous  crop  than  the  Germans  proposed  to  take  up 
the  discussion  of  the  second  point  into  which  we  had 
divided  the  problem  under  notice — ^namely  the  status  of 
the  C.  N.,  and  we  received  from  the  Governor- General 
a  letter  that  created  something  like  consternation.  It 
was  a  remarkable  letter,  evidently  the  sequel  of  all  the 
dissatisfaction  with  the  Comite  National  and  it  de- 
manded a  quid  pro  quo  for  the  concessions  made  as  to 
the  new  crop.  Though  it  was  written  in  diplomatic 
phraseology  and  plainly  a  product  of  careful  collabora- 
tion, it  was  autocratic,  Prussian ;  it  laid  down  the  law  as 
to  what  the  C.  'N.  might  and  might  not  do.  Some  time 
before,  the  Germans  had  appointed  Dr.  Reith  and  Dr. 
Schachs  as  representatives  to  consult  with  M.  Francqui 
as  to  the  work  and  the  status  of  the  C.  N.;  for  weeks 
they  had  been  examining  the  matter,  and  had  come  to 
an  agreement  which  we  supposed  was  satisfactory.  It 
had  also  been  suggested  that  were  the  Governor- General 
to  have  a  personal  interview  and  a  frank  discussion  with 
M.  Solvay  and  M.  Francqui  a  better  understanding 
might  be  reached.  We  were  delighted  and  General  von 
Bissing  sent  for  M.  Solvay  and  M.  Francqui,  who  ac- 
cordingly went  one  morning  at  the  hour  fixed  to  the 
Ministere  des  Sciences  et  des  Arts,  were  ushered  into  a 
drawing-room,  and  presently  von  Bissing  entered  in 
state,  in  full  uniform,  booted,  spurred,  and  surrounded 

657 


BELGIUM 

by  his  staff.  Von  Bissing  stood  there,  his  hands  crossed 
on  the  hilt  of  his  sabre,  and,  the  presentations  concluded, 
drew  from  his  pocket  a  paper  and  read  a  formal  address 
to  M.  Solvay  and  M.  Francqui — the  Prussian  notion  of 
frank  discussion. 

The  exigent  letter  which  so  concerned  us  was  ad- 
dressed to  Villalobar,  to  van  VoUenhoven  and  to  me  as 
protecting  Ministers — M.  van  VoUenhoven,  the  Dutch 
Charge  des  Affaires,  was  then  acting  with  us,  his  chief, 
the  Jonkheer  de  Weede,  Dutch  Minister  to  Belgium, 
who  was  with  the  Belgian  Government  at  Havre,  hav- 
ing been  named,  at  the  request  of  the  Germans,  a  pa- 
tron of  the  C.  N.  and  the  C.  R.  B.  We  were  informed 
by  the  letter  that  "while  the  protection  and  favour  which 
the  Governor- General  had  never  ceased  to  accord  to  the 
C.  N.  gave  proof  of  the  interest  he  had  in  the  work,  it 
appeared  that  the  sphere  of  activity  of  the  C.  N.  had 
taken  on  an  extension  that  had  not  been  foreseen  when 
it  had  been  created."  The  Governor-General  esteemed 
it  necessary  that  the  action  of  the  C.  N.  be  clearly  deter- 
mined so  that  friction  would  not  be  produced.  To  this 
end,  in  order  to  enable  the  authorities  to  have  a  deeper 
knowledge  of  the  work  of  the  Committee,  and  to  facili- 
tate its  task,  the  Governor-General  had  decided  to  in- 
struct the  German  authorities  in  the  country  to  maintain 
closer  contact  with  the  sub-committees  of  the  C.  N.,  and, 
in  short,  to  attend  the  meetings  of  these  sub-committees 
and  take  part  in  the  proceedings.  There  was  much  else 
in  the  letter,  which  concluded  by  saying  that  all  this  was 
in  accordance  with  international  law.  But  even  interna- 
tional law  could  not  make  German  Kreischefs  persona 
grata  at  a  meeting  of  a  Belgian  committee,  and  if  that 

658 


A  CRISIS 

were  insisted  upon  it  meant,  of  course,  the  collapse  of 
the  work. 

And  so  again  those  long  wearying  discussions,  opened 
by  a  preliminary  meeting  between  Villalobar,  van  Vol- 
lenhoven,  and  me,  on  the  one  hand,  and  von  der  Lancken 
and  one  of  his  assistants,  Dr.  Reith,  on  the  other.  We 
told  of  the  fears  and  reluctance  of  the  Belgians.  I 
asked  the  Baron  to  picture  to  himself  a  meeting  of  a 
Belgian  committee  with  a  German  officer  seated  at  the 
table ;  they  protested  that  they  had  meant  no  such  thing. 
It  seemed  that  it  had  never  occurred  to  the  Governor- 
General  that  the  presence  of  his  subordinates  at  the 
meetings  of  men  at  Dinant  or  at  Louvain  could  in  any 
way  be  objectionable  to  those  men.  From  just  what 
quarter  the  suggestion  had  come  we  did  not  know:  up 
to  that  time  there  had  been  some  confusion;  orders  had 
emanated  from  von  Sandt,  from  von  Lumm,  and  from 
others,  and  we  had  the  impression  that  there  had  been 
differences,  jealousies,  no  doubt,  and  perhaps  quarrels 
among  the  German  officials,  with  the  military  always  in 
the  background.  There  seemed,  indeed,  to  be  a  contin- 
ual, desperate  struggle  in  von  Bissing's  entourage  to  se- 
cure the  ascendency  over  him,  to  get  in  his  good  graces, 
to  be  near  the  fountain  of  privilege  and  of  power,  and  to 
make  draughts  on  it  from  time  to  time,  an  interesting 
example  of  what  irresponsible  personal  government 
may  be. 

We  obtained  an  agreement  that  thereafter  only  Baron 
von  der  Lancken  was  to  issue  orders  in  reference  to  the 
ravitaillement.  Our  discussions  lasted  for  days.  In  von 
Bissing's  letter,  or  in  the  French  translation  of  it  which 
we  had  before  us,  the  paragraphs  that  foreshadowed  the 
grim  figures  of  the  Kreischef  s  at  the  committee-meetings 

659 


BELGIUM 

was  written  in  the  conditional  mood,  as  though  it  were 
merely  a  suggestion,  a  possibility,  and  Villalobar  and  I 
had  seized  on  this  fact  to  calm  the  Belgians,  saying  that 
the  matter  was  not  yet  wholly  settled.  But  when  the  ob- 
jections were  set  forth  von  der  Lancken  said  that  he  saw 
no  way  out  of  it  since  the  Governor- General  had  stated 
that  it  was  necessary  to  do  this;  the  orders  had  already 
been  prepared  instructing  the  Kreischefs  to  attend  the 
committee-meetings.  We  called  his  attention  to  those 
conditional  phrases,  and  he  said  that  in  the  original  Ger- 
man which  the  Governor-General  had  seen  and  signed, 
they  were  in  the  indicative;  it  was  only  in  the  French 
translation  given  to  us,  that  they  were  in  the  condi- 
tional. .  .  . 

We  urged  him  to  try  another  plan,  which  would  per- 
mit the  Kreischefs  to  receive  a  report  of  the  proceedings 
of  those  meetings,  and  thus  informed  to  continue  "to 
favour  and  protect  the  work." 

"Ne  forcez  pas  le  manage.  Monsieur  le  Ministre" 
said  M.  Francqui  to  the  Baron  von  der  Lancken  at  one 
of  our  final  meetings,  ''je  vous  prie;  sinon  vous  aurez  wri 
divorce  deux  semaines,  apres." 

Von  der  Lancken  consented,  and  said  the  orders  al- 
ready prepared  would  not  be  put  into  execution. 

The  next  morning,  in  the  vast  relief  I  felt,  I  had  gone 
to  the  studio  of  the  painter  Watelet.  We  were  talking 
of  something  quite  important — ^values,  I  think — when 
there  was  a  knock  at  the  door  and  de  Leval  burst  in,/ 
saying  that  I  must  come  at  once,  that  the  Germans  had 
ordered  their  Kreischefs  or  the  commissioners  of  the 
Kreischefs  to  attend  all  committee-meetings,  that  the 
thirty  thousand  Belgians  working  for  the  C.  N.  had 
given  their  resignations,  that  the  ravitaillement  was  at 

660 


A  CRISIS 

last  and  definitively  at  an  end,  and. that  Villalobar  and 
Francqui  and  Lambert  were  waiting  for  me  at  the  Lega- 
tion to  decide  what  steps  were  to  be  taken.  We  rushed 
back  to  the  Legation  then,  and  there  they  were,  though 
calmer  than  I  had  expected  to  find  them  in  such  a  crisis. 
On  inquiry  I  learned  that  the  order  had  indeed  gone  out 
to  the  Kreischef s,  either  after  or  before  von  der  Lancken 
had  said  on  Wednesday  that  he  would  suspend  execution 
and  change  the  method,  and  that  several  Belgians  had 
either  resigned  or  had  signified  their  intention  of  re- 
signing. 

Villalobar  and  I  went  at  once  to  von  der  Lancken 
and  explained  to  him  the  gravity  of  the  situation.  It 
was  all  a  mistake,  he  said ;  there  had  been  trop  de  zele 
on  the  part  of  some  of  the  Kreischef s ;  he  would  arrange 
all  as  we  had  agreed;  the  presidents  of  the  committees 
would  see  the  commissioners  before  the  meetings  and 
discuss  with  them  and  furnish  them  with  proces-verhaux 
afterward.  He  said  that  he  did  not  wish  any  one  out- 
side to  say  that  the  harhares  had  seized  the  crop  and  that 
the  Governor-General  was  eating  it  all  up  himself. 

"Ne  faisons  pas  en  sorte  que  cette  belle  lumiere/' 
I  said,  '7a  seule  qui  existe  aw  monde  aujourd'hui  soit 
eteinte." 

And  so  when  Mr.  Hoover  came  back  to  Brussels  in 
a  few  days,  and  M.  Francqui  gave  a  dinner  in  his 
honour,  with  the  wide  doors  of  the  dining-room  opening 
upon  the  garden,  lovely  in  its  mysterious  purple  shad- 
ows and  the  cool,  dark  greens,  we  could  all  feel  that  the 
ravitcdllement  was  assured  for  a  time,  at  least. 

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